Marriage and Mischief Managed
by nitefang
Summary: When the Marriage Incentive is posited by both ancient magic and the Ministry to counter the severe population decline, Hermione finds herself disappointed with her prospects. The aforementioned prospects, however, finds this frankly offensive and decides to live up to her exact expectations, even if they're untrue, to prove Hermione's good at reading books, not people.
1. Chapter 1

**Rebooted as of 5 October 2016, for better flow and variety.**

* * *

 **One**

* * *

On the first of May in the year 1999, something interesting occurred in the magical communities of Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales. You see, witches and wizards had all forgotten an old lesson from Charms class. In their defense, they were busy worrying about what they thought were more pressing matters—like the population crisis (which was Lord Voldemort's fault), the systematic elimination of corruption in the Ministry (which was many other peoples' faults on top of Voldemort's), and the rebuilding of magical communities (which was Voldemort's fault).

So it wasn't the public's fault that they didn't remember residual magical buildup. In further defense of the public's ignorance, professors domestic and abroad hadn't stressed the lesson very much either and had mentioned it in a most offhand manner, but that's beside the point, eh?

Magic _lingers_. In the same way that people stay on the earth long after their deaths by virtue of their impact on those who remember them, so too can magic remain in its effects on the atmosphere. Oftentimes, the residue isn't significant enough to warrant consideration. However, the strength of leftover magic is frequently combined with the atmosphere created by the people themselves.

Think of Hogwarts, which boasts the biggest collection of potential magic, literal and figurative. The magic each and every student carried into the school and expended in their seven years within it remained in every grain of stone and wood. The enormous magical buildup gave the castle a certain amount of _life_. Disappearing rooms, secret passageways, hidden charms at every corner? And honestly, what right-minded founder would create moving staircases, which would only be detrimental to punctuality but also a safety hazard? No, that bloody castle is alive.

Think of the British Ministry of Magic, with nine levels packed with witches and wizards who deal with every facet of running a magical country, from its global face to its deepest secrets. Owls and paper memos soar through the air as the bustle of men and women ebb and flow on the ground. Faulty magical objects were repaired in one department while new spells, charms, and potions were made, verified, and sanctioned in another.

Then think of an ancient, magical manor, which housed generations of a magical family, fraught with centuries of intrigue that only made the structure as cold and mysterious as those who've inhabited it. Though made with basic architectural processes, the magic imbued upon the house in the form of protective wards and camouflage charms gave the manor life enough to construct a labyrinthine appearance to those unwelcome.

And now think of the happenings between the years of 1996 to 1998, and what occurred within the walls of these three structures. Hogwarts suffered two major attacks, one being the final battle of the war. The Ministry fell thrice—once to willing ignorance and cowardice, once to a group of Death Eaters and several bold teenagers, and once more to a madman and his followers. The sprawling manor in Wiltshire weathered centuries of Malfoys before crumbling to the sheer power of evil that used its old walls as headquarters.

Honestly, it wasn't at all surprising that these three sites became privy to the strangest magical phenomenon only several months after the bells of the new millennium.

* * *

"…and the third floor corridor—"

"Always the third floor corridor."

"Quite right, Severus. I fear that I began an unfortunate trend when we stored the Sorcerer's Stone there. Apologies, Phineas, please continue."

"Thank you _so much_ , Albus. So the third floor corridor, the faculty lounge, and the Room of Requirement. Still."

"Nine areas left!" chimed Armando Dippet. "Wonderful!"

"Yes, we've made good progress," said Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, setting down her quill and closing her logbook of repairs. "But we've still a long ways to go even after rebuilding the castle."

As McGonagall sat back in her chair and pulled off her spectacles to rub the bridge of her nose, a massive, brown leather-bound book materialized in the air, hung for a moment, and then landed on the desk with a soft _boom_.

"Oh, dear. Is the library malfunctioning again?" asked Dippet.

"And we're back to _ten_ areas," muttered Snape.

"This isn't from any shelf in our library," said McGonagall, already holding her wand aloft as she rose from her chair and examined the book.

It was as wide as her shoulders and thicker than her thigh, its cover a bit worn and plain. She approached the book with all the caution of a veteran of two wars and forty years' experience as a teacher, casting precautionary spells left and right. The most fascinating result from testing was the conclusion that no one in existence had previous touched the book, nor did it have any lingering traces of another's magical signature upon it. if McGonagall put a finger on it, she would be the first.

"Well, what are you waiting for, woman?!" demanded Dippet impatiently as the book levitated before her, turning over and over with each subtle swoop of her wand. "Open the bleedin' thing!"

With another decisive flick of her wand, the cover flipped open to reveal two columns of beautiful, flourishing calligraphy. The black ink slid across the page like ribbons rather than stains.

"Are those lists of names? Is this the new book of potential Hogwarts students?" asked Phineas.

"No. _I_ haven't been a student of this school in many years," answered McGonagall, finding her name in one column.

Every flick of her wand turned the page until they were about an inch through the book's thickness, whereupon it was revealed that the list was still in the process of being written. The flowing script wrote wet in gold filigree and dried a shiny black, shimmering like burning paper before moving onto the next name, which happened to be that of Harry Potter's. The next name appeared beside his, on the adjacent column—Ginny Weasley.

"It's not just a list of names," said Dumbledore. "It's a list of couples."

Snape snorted, and Phineas's agreeing scoff followed immediately after. McGonagall glanced up at the portrait behind her, meeting the gaze of her longtime friend and colleague, and sighed. His blue eyes did not twinkle, but they did warm sympathetically.

"It's only been a _year_ ," said McGonagall wearily, summoning another quill and a blank parchment. "A _year_ , and now _this_."

"That's not the only thing," said Snape. He jerked his chin at her hands, which had begun to pen a letter to Acting Minister Shacklebolt.

At first, she was confused, but a second later, she saw the silver dots and lines that formed a ring around her left ring finger.

Dumbledore hummed. "Oh, my."

* * *

Padma Patil had only worked in the Department of Mysteries a grand total of a month and a day. She'd only been working in the Love Chamber for a month. Studious and dedicate, characteristics overshadowed only by that of Hermione Granger's obsessiveness, she spent most of her free time trying to catch up to the centuries of research done concerning her field. So for the last four weeks, she'd logged in hours at the Department of Mysteries's Archives, reading up on old literature.

True, it was late and on a weekend, but her work meant she kept strange hours, as Unspeakables were encouraged to work when they felt their minds were at their best. Her mum and Parvati had always joked that she was the embodiment of a night owl, and so the sentiment persisted. She spent evenings researching about everything magically related to love.

Such was her life for the time being, and she was quite all right with that, thanks. Padma understood the importance of being familiar with the material before attempting to fiddle with it, for Merlin's sake. So what if she hadn't done any hands-on work and the only strange, mysterious thing to live up to the rumors were the explosions and incessant ticking emanating from the Time Room?

As she sat at one of the long tables, lit up by the two lamps on either end, surrounded by neat stacks of books, scrolls, and loose parchment, Padma did not expect a single strange thing to happen—even in the secret bowels of a magical building. Clearly, she'd grown a bit complacent.

The soft _boom_ of something heavy hitting the cold marble floor echoed throughout the empty library, and nearly upsetting the ink pot into which Padma had been dipping her quill.

"Hello?" she called immediately, firmly. That'd always been her strategy when things literally went bump in the night—anger and hostility to dispel the fear. "Come out now. I know the spell to have your guts for garters."

When no one stepped forward and the silence persisted, she finally stood from her chair, wand aloft and a hex resting on her lips. Even in a place that was warded against unwanted intruders—and further reinforced after the events of 1996—to the literal nines, she had to be careful. Constant vigilance was a hard lesson to learn and certainly not easily forgotten.

Yet even when she cast a powerful _Lumos_ , all she found was a gigantic book sitting on the floor. No Death Eater, no monster, no mischievous coworker. Just a bloody _book_ to scare the hell out of her.

A bloody book that had fallen but didn't have a shelf off of which to fall within a five foot radius. She looked up at the high, vaulted ceilings and the arms jutting out to grip a section that could very well function as a balcony for rodents.

Knowing better than to willy-nilly pick up a book that might've materialized out of thin air, she levitated the tome, wondering how much it actually weighed if she picked it up herself. She cast her own arsenal of spells—ones quite similar to the ones being cast a few hundred miles away in a castle in the Scottish highlands—and determined the book's relative innocence. Only then did she finally open the book with a soft flick of her wand.

At first, the pages fluttered slowly as she tried to take it in with a meticulous eye, but after the tenth blank page, they all rushed past until she hit the end cover. She let it hover in front of her for a moment as she wracked her brain for any sort of reference to empty, magical books materializing out of thin air. Why would a giant, _empty_ book appear out of nowhere, with neither trace nor tell of another magical signature upon it?

She sighed and closed the book and then winced.

It was a rookie mistake, one many an Unspeakable made during their early days. The last level of analysis of artifacts were always tactile; hands were not meant to be used until the very final step.

Fortunately for Padma, it did the trick. As she wrenched her hand back from the smooth leather cover, her handprint reflected in glowing copper before the metallic mark swirled out of form and scattered across the surface. Glyphs, runes, and symbols flashed up at her while she frantically waved her wand to open the book again, upside down so she could see the entirety of the cover.

There was no need for an adjustment or processing period. Padma had quite literally seen it all before—in her research.

Taking a deep breath, she raked her hands through her thick, black hair, wincing when she caught a tangle that yanked out a few of her shoulder-length strands. When she picked her hair off her hand, she froze for the third time that night. On the ring finger of her left hand sat a silvery, sweeping pattern that shimmered in the dim light. She hadn't felt it appear, but it certainly hadn't been there before she found the book.

"Oh, bugger."

* * *

The very same words were uttered miles away by a platinum blond-haired man who looked up from where he was reading a book in his hands in front of a book shelf in his library of his ancestral home and saw a large, brown book toppling off a shelf and onto his face. He saw neither names nor markings—only big, dusty brown and then an all-encompassing black.

* * *

Almost simultaneously, several miles closer to the Ministry of Magic, a muffled explosion had the customers of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes pausing briefly in their perusal of the plethora of products before turning back to their companions to mutter excitedly about what new invention the Weasley twins planned to release. In the basement workroom of the shop, the twins in question waved their wands to funnel away the blinding, dark violet smoke that had enveloped the room, the fallout of another experimental charm gone awry.

"Any tingling?" asked George, scratching the top of his head. Half his hair stuck out to the side while the other half stuck straight up, the ends dusted with shimmering violet powder.

"Negative," said Fred, tilting his head to brush the same fine substance from his own hair. "Any cooling sensations?"

" _Nein_ ," answered George, brushing off his shoulders and flicking his wand to sweep up the rest of the lingering smoke. "Warming sensation perhaps?"

" _Nyet_ ," replied Fred, reaching for the parchment with their revised instructions. "What about the presence of any musical ambience?"

" _Iie_." George sighed and tapped the end of his wand against his nose. "Do you smell food?"

Fred frowned. "Are you asking if I had a stroke or do you think that's a side effect we hadn't considered?"

George grimaced, eyes wide. "Both?"

"That'd be a strong _óxi_ on both fronts, mate," said Fred. He crumpled up the list and tossed it back onto the table, sliding onto a stool and resting his elbow on a free space of the worktable. Something sparkly caught his eye and he looked down. And then he cocked his head to the side and frowned. "Er, did we have strange silver tattoos on the list?"

George paused and then looked down at his own hands, and there it was—a silver curlicue twined around his left ring finger. "What is this?" he asked. "Is this ink?"

Fred turned his hand over and over to study the geometric pattern on his own finger. "D'you think it was the hemlock?"

"Hemlock shouldn't fuse metal into your skin. And it wasn't even part of the charm," said George, shaking his head and trying to rub it off.

"And neither should it have caused pixie wings to sprout, but it's done it before," countered Fred. "We have a whole supply of it close by—do you think it could've had an effect?"

"It can't have been," said George, shaking his head. "It looks too artistic—too deliberate."

"And why's it only on our ring fingers?" added Fred. "This makes no sense."

"Did we accidentally just marry each other?" asked George, eyebrows shooting up. "Is that even possible?"

Fred gagged. "Merlin knows we have enough weird shite sitting in here to have some sort of insane effect."

The door to the workroom burst open, and Verity poked her head in. "Oi!" she barked. "What're you two doing in there? You just gave me and bunch of customers some weird tattoo-thing on our fingers!"

The twins slowly turned to exchange horrified looks.

"Did you—"

"But it shouldn't have—"

"We couldn't have!"

"But we just did!"

"Hey!" snapped Verity again, glaring at her two bosses. "What've you done?!"

"I think we all just got married to each other," said Fred. George smacked the back of his head.

* * *

As the twins practically crawled over each other to escape the responsibility of addressing their befuddled customers, a soft snore thrummed from a lump of periwinkle bed linens and duvet in a darkened bedroom several miles away.

Overworked and sleep-deprived, Hermione Granger had passed out upon returning to her flat and stripping off her work robes to flop onto her bed. Immersed in dreams as she was, she was unaware of the sudden spike of panic that lashed through the community as witches and wizards all over Great Britain demanded to know why they'd suddenly had silver or gold tattoos appearing on very important fingers. Hermione's own familiar, silvery geometric design sparkled in the moonlight filtering in through her window.


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

* * *

The Acting Minister was really only supposed to hold office for several months, at maximum, but even if Kingsley Shacklebolt hadn't been thrust into the position on the interim, he would've been voted into it anyway. He was simply a very capable, authoritative figure upon whom people could easily rely in good conscience.

But when he was confronted with a pursed-lipped Hogwarts Headmistress, a frantic Unspeakable, and an irate ex-Death Eater and Malfoy Heir, all touting enormous, magical books at the same time an outbreak of metallic tattoos hit his constituents and himself, all on the eve before the long-awaited Anniversary Festival on the second of May, even someone as laid-back and unflappable as Kingsley Shacklebolt was allowed to show some stress.

"I've been branded _again_ , Minister, and I was nearly beheaded by a book of fucking _doodles_ —"

"Mister Malfoy, I may not be your professor any longer, but watch your tongue!"

"—and then instead of being nursed to health, I am hauled to your office at an unholy hour of the night by an army of my bloody House Elves—yeah, laugh it up, Patil!—who looked on the verge of shitting themselves because of this stupid book—"

"If it nearly killed you, it's clearly not all that stupid at all."

"Miss Patil!"

"What the hell are you doing here anyway?!" cried Malfoy, finally throwing his hands up in frustration.

"I am an Unspeakable!"

"Unspeakably devoted to a lack of chain of command? Don't you have a superior you're meant to report to?"

Padma fixed him with a pointed look, her arms casually crossed over her chest. "I went to the Minister of Magic, didn't I?"

Kingsley sighed. "Draco—"

"Oh, wow, what's the Minister of Magic compared to the Boy Who Lives to Be the Center of Attention?" asked Malfoy, refusing a single deterrent.

McGonagall stood between her two former students, hands folded in front of her, her lightening grey hair spilling over one shoulder. Padma had shed her grey robes in favor of the more stress and heat-friendly Muggle outfit Parvati had shown her in a magazine, shifting her weight back and forth as she tried to contain her anxiety. Probationary Citizen Draco Malfoy was as impeccably put-together in spite of the late hour, his irritation, and the near-death experience—the only evidence of which was a small patch of whiter skin on his left eyebrow, the scar leftover from the blow.

"Now, you all said you found the books right before noticing the ring marks," said Kingsley evenly, rubbing his short beard and mustache. "Minerva, you say yours contains a list of couples. Padma, yours is blank except for the designs that appear on the cover. Draco, yours depicts arbitrary designs moving in and out of pages?"

"My exact words were 'fucking squiggles flitting about,' but I understand the substitution."

"For Merlin's sake, Mr. Malfoy," said McGonagall, shaking her head and casting her eyes heavenward, "how you manage to reconcile your pristine hygiene and that filthy mouth, I will never know."

"Practice, professor," drawled Malfoy, slipping well-manicured fingers into his crisp black trousers.

" _The marks on the book—"_ interrupted Padma, "are also glyphs, symbols, snippets from every language under the sun." She stepped forward to set her open palm over the book again. Her copper handprint swirled into a multitude of markings on the brown leather. "They all indicate different aspects of what I assume to be my own identity—daughter, sister, cousin, lover—but also more general ones like love, connection, souls, kin, bond, family."

"Which could explain why this book lists couples who're either married or courting," said McGonagall. "Though it doesn't do well to explain those who _aren't_ romantically entangled."

Kingsley leaned back in his chair. "Neither does it explain Draco's book."

"Wrong," drawled Malfoy, whipping out his wand to levitate his book and flip it open. "It explains a _bit_." He pointed at a design on one page and the metallic marking around Kingsley's finger.

"So it shows a connection between the books and the marks, but it doesn't shed a lot of light on what's actually happening or why," said Padma.

Malfoy scoffed. "Are all Ravenclaws as pedantic as to refuse acknowledging direct ties to current events?"

"It must be _exhausting_ ," said Padma, shooting him a dark glare, "to be so hateful all the time. Of course we're thinking about the population crisis, but it's circumstantial until we've got real evidence. We can make all the assumptions we want, but we'll be wasting time connecting fact points in a pattern of fiction."

"Miss Patil is right," said Kingsley. "We need a definitive truth behind these books and designs and their relationship to the crisis."

"I suppose _who's behind it all_ is also a question, albeit unspoken and feared," said McGonagall.

"Look at all the questions and no one and nothing here to answer them," grumbled Malfoy. "And who, pray tell, will be the ones to do the figurative _asking_ of said questions?"

"Thank you for being the first volunteer, Draco," said Kingsley.

"Absolutely not," said Malfoy calmly, picking lint off his trousers.

"I will, naturally, be part of that endeavor," said Padma, shooting Kingsley a pointed look.

"And, naturally, I _won't_ ," said Malfoy, smoothing out minute wrinkles.

"As Headmistress of one of the country's most prized Archives, I will also contribute my efforts," added McGonagall with a tired sigh.

"And as the Master of both Black and Malfoy Libraries, I can be counted upon to find _someone else_ to research in my stead," said Malfoy, louder this time to ensure the banishment of Kingsley's ridiculous assumption.

"As the Master of two expansive libraries, I can count on you to aid them," corrected Kingsley.

Malfoy looked up innocently. "Apologies. I missed the part where I was a teacher or a researcher."

Kingsley ignored him; Malfoy rolled his eyes. "In addition to the resources already at the disposal of you _three_ , I give you full, unrestricted access to any and all archives under the British Ministry. On top of that, I will also bring other trusted individuals into the fold to assist you."

"Who?" asked Padma.

Kingsley looked between the three of them. "Who would you prefer?"

"William Weasley," said McGonagall. "He's a talented, respected, and experienced Curse-Breaker."

"And a _Weasley_ ," said Malfoy as Kingsley opened a drawer and pulled out a piece of parchment.

"And a trusted member of the Order of the Phoenix," continued McGonagall pointedly. "We can't afford any risks."

"Let's just throw in the rest of the Weasley family then, eh?" asked Draco, throwing up his hands. "And Merlin forbid we forget—"

"Hermione has to be involved as well," said Padma firmly, raising an eyebrow at Draco.

Draco exhaled slowly through his nostrils. "The Curse-Breaker, I understood, but the bookworm-turned-bookshop-owner? Will the favoritism show no end?"

The Minister's crusade of forcing Draco into the absurdity persisted. He duplicated the message and stood to attach the missives to the black and white scops owl on the perch behind his desk. "To Bill and Hermione, love." And the owl took off with a soft hoot.

"Will your ignorance persist as well, Malfoy?" snapped Padma. "She's a consultant for the Ministry as a whole—a third party researcher. She's already helped the Aurors and the Department of Mysteries in the last six months. She owns Flourish and Blotts now, but she doesn't always run it on a day-to-day basis."

"The woman always needs to have not just one full plate but three," muttered McGonagall sadly, shaking her head.

Kingsley wiped his hands down his face. "I know I ask too much from you three, but the public will demand much more tomorrow."

Padma ran her fingers through her thick, loose hair and took a deep breath. "I'll need another cup of coffee then." She turned to McGonagall. "Still partial to Darjeeling, Professor?"

McGonagall tightened her tartan shawl around herself, waved her wand, and her hair swirled into a bun. "Perhaps now would be the time for me to take up coffee again as well." She leaned to the side to look at a disgusted Malfoy. "Shall we, young man?"

"He'll be with you shortly, Minerva," said Kingsley. He didn't spare Malfoy a glance where the younger man sat as he continued to glower between the other occupants of the room. "We need to have a word first."

Malfoy snorted. "Knowing that tone, it'll certainly be more than _a_ word."

"Come along, Miss Patil," said McGonagall, ushering the younger witch out the door, their respective books following them out, dancing on the air. "We'll start in the Hogwarts library. Mr. Malfoy, you can Floo through my office and meet us there."

Malfoy waved nonchalantly—only several degrees more respectful than dismissive—and then turned to the tall, broad-shouldered former Auror whose dark, functional robes, while no longer Auror standard issue, still bore the same effect. Draco Malfoy did not shift from his lackadaisical position on the sofa, but he certainly was more tense than before.

"I have my suspicions about why the books appeared to the three of you," said Kingsley, coming around to the front of the desk to lean against the edge and cross his arms over his chest. "Less so of the ladies because of their ties to an ancient school and the hub of the country's magic."

"I own an old, magical house," said Malfoy blandly. "Does that make a difference?"

"The fact that you focused on the edifice rather than the blood of those who've lived within it speaks volumes," said Kingsley. "I don't know who decided that you should be party to this phenomenon, but take it for the opportunity that it is."

"To _play_ at being a glittering hero? Yes, Shacklebolt, I'm chomping at the bit."

Kingsley nodded, though not in understanding. "You're still under probation. It would do you well to remember that you were not _pardoned_ in the truest sense."

"Of course I haven't forgotten," said Malfoy, just short of a hiss as his face twitched to keep from falling into a sneer. Even he knew not to push the Minister. "I'm the bloody _example._ "

"You've done well these past several months, truly," continued Kingsley. "I know the struggles you've had trying to build the corporation back up and on a steadier foundation, and it's a commendable effort. So take advantage of your role in this to further prove yourself as a _pawn_ , not a _squire_ , of a madman."

Malfoy scowled briefly—more of a wince than anything—sniffed and collected his limbs to pull himself into a stiff, formal stance. "Will that be all, Minister?"

Kingsley smiled. "Good talk, Draco. Good talk."

Draco rolled his eyes and sauntered back out, waggling his fingers over his shoulder. "Always do love our heart-to-hearts."

Snorting, Kingsley turned back to his desk, but not before ducking away from the book that danced its way through the air after Malfoy.

* * *

It was not lost on the Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and English witches and wizards that they were essentially _branded_ with a metallic design on their ring fingers on the night of the first of May. Not only was it the day before the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts and the awaited Anniversary Festival to celebrate and commemorate those who'd been lost, but it was also the eve of Beltane. Regardless of the fact that it was no longer an observed ritual in modern times, the implications of being branded during an ancient fertility ritual was not ignored by magical folk.

The population decline crisis was new and therefore painfully fresh on the collective mind of the magical community. Though the Daily Prophet kept the public abreast of the magical research done to reverse infertility and persisted in keeping adoption in the conversation, the matter ultimately kept coming back to the diminished population and the fear wrought by Lord Voldemort.

Too many parents buried children during the Second Wizarding War. Too many people considered Hogwarts more of a memorial than a school. Too many people walked away with either the inability or unwillingness to subject innocent children to the darkness of the world. The fear of a new Dark Lord rising from the ashes of the first still ghosted along the gutters and shadows. It'd been a full year since the end of the war, but some wounds took longer to stop bleeding. Hit Wizards and Aurors were still hard at work despite the wanted lists growing shorter. For the public to begin the day with a new, magical skin accessory, it all felt a little too familiar, regardless of how sparkly it was.

Several hours after the meeting in Kingsley's office, the Anniversary Festival was ready to begin, and no one had much of an answer.

Hosted in Hogsmeade with most of the food and supplies ferried from Diagon Alley, booths, stalls, and games lined the quiet square. A massive tent sat in the middle of the pathway between Hogwarts and the village, dedicated to the fireworks show that would light up the sky come evening. A stage hosted the main area of the event, ready for the bevy of musical guests queued up throughout the day.

The crowds, as expected, buzzed with excitement, palpable in the nearly-noon sunlight. Kingsley stood on the middle of the wide stage, the orchestra at rest behind him as he pressed his wand against his throat and addressed the crowd.

"Welcome, witches and wizards, to the Anniversary Festival!" he boomed to the sound of cheers and trumpets.

The colorful banners and flags flapped in the summer breeze, and the Weasley twins shot off a confetti cannon, showering a wide swath of people with their especially annoying version of magical confetti, in which every piece multiplied in a small burst of sparkles if you threw it into the air again.

"Not yet, you twits!" hollered Ron Weasley.

The crowd laughed, many of them in the middle brushing off the sparkling confetti and exacerbating the problem. Several of the Hogwarts girls tittered at the twins, and the duo winked back unabashedly.

"By now, I'm sure all of the magical world is aware of the markings that appeared late last night," said Kingsley, holding up his own left hand, the design glinting in the sunlight. "I assure you all, I've had experts working on the issue since the appearance of the markings, and until I can get a more concrete explanation than speculations, I must hold off on making any official statements."

"Then what's the point of talking?!" called out a man.

"When I stepped into that office, I swore transparency," said the Minister. "I have done my best to uphold that promise during my tenure. But now I must ask to exercise the trust my office has tried to build with the public."

"So it starts again!"

"No," said Kingsley firmly. "We're only asking for three days—three days to formulate an answer beyond an _I'm-not-sure_. I'm asking that you not focus your thoughts on literal and figurative designs, but rather bring them back to the reason we're all here today, on this earth and at this event."

Murmurs of agreement hummed through the crowd, people nodding and some even whooping.

"This is a celebration," he said, his voice strong as it reverberated throughout the village, "of the people we lost, of the sacrifices they made, and of the peace we have to fight and maintain in honor of them."

"'Ear, 'ear!" chorused Fred and George, starting up a round of laughter, which was quickly drowned out by the tumultuous cheering.

The twins' confetti cannon fired again, but no one chastised them.

"So I'm asking you all," said Kingsley, as the crowds quieted enough for his amplified voice to be heard again, "to enjoy this day not for the sake of ignorance, but for the people whose lives were taken, whether willingly given or wrongfully seized. We all knew that end of the war wouldn't be the end of sadness or strife in the world. But trust me and my team enough to give this day the reverence and respect we all intended, instead of darkening it with fear."

He swallowed deeply and looked out across the sea of people, who would never doubt the man's sincerity.

"I know that it's nearly impossible, all things considered, but for one day, I hope each and every one of you smiles _genuinely_ , despite the tattoos, the suspicion, and whatever other worry may arise in your minds. We have survived, all of us, and we will continue to do so no matter what. This Anniversary Festival only continues to prove that."

The next round of cheers was instigated by familiar faces—young and old, from the legendary Dumbledore's Army to the Order of the Phoenix. And as the rest of the crowd joined in to riotous applause, a young man off to the side with messy, jet-black hair and bright green eyes grinned and slung his arms over his best friends' shoulders.

"That man will die in office before he's ever voted out," said Ron around a mouthful of kebab.

How he'd gotten it in the time between barking at the twins and the end of Kingsley's speech, neither Harry nor Hermione were sure. But they blamed his stomach's tenacity on the fact that he had to help Fred and George set up all morning. Sometimes his appetite directly correlated with mental distress, especially where the twins were concerned.

The crowds dispersed to the booming, bouncing music of the orchestra. Harry, Ron, and Hermione gracefully weathered the ever-present stares and whispers that followed each of their public appearances. While Harry warmly greeted a little boy who wanted to shake the hand of the Boy Who Lived and Ron tried not to blush and drool out his food when a pretty brunette winked and waved at him, Hermione took a deep breath and rubbed the knuckles of her left hand.

A flash of red caught her eye before an arm slid around her shoulders. "All right there, Granger?"

Hermione summoned a grin and slung her own arm around Ginny's shoulders. "Still intact, Weasley."

"Sure about that?" asked Ginny, lowering her voice to keep the boys from overhearing as they strolled further down the cobblestone path. "You were rubbing your finger like you wanted to wipe the whole digit off."

"I've got enough marks to last me a lifetime without this new one," said Hermione. She flexed her fingers and scowled down at the geometric pattern swirling around her finger. "Pretty as this may be."

Ginny hummed in agreement, holding up her free hand and admiring her own feathery design. "Yes, pretty— _pretty fucking terrifying._ "

"Ginny!" yelped Ron. "Language!" He caught up to the two women, the kebab in his hand replaced by a cone of fish and chips.

Ginny's eyes turned heavenward. "Language? Need I remind you of the time you said—"

Ron reddened and waved a chip at her face, looking so much like their mum. "Don't you even—"

"When did _that_ happen?" asked Hermione, staring at the food in his hands.

"Ron's appetite's a magic all on its own," said Harry, coming up beside Ginny to slip his hand into hers. "It shouldn't take you more than nine years to learn that."

"Even the Department of Mysteries would be forever confounded by it," added Ginny, kicking the side of Ron's shoe.

"I'll tell Mum," warned Ron, his barely-credible sneer further weakened by his mouthful of fish.

Ginny stole a chip and smiled sweetly. "That I said 'fucking' or that I kicked you?"

"Mu-um! Come quick!" Another confetti cannon blasted, this time a bit smaller, though no less loud. The twins materialized next to the four. "Ginevra's bullying Ronald!"

"You know, for all Mum's complaints about it taking so long to have a girl in the family—"

"—we're certain she got one a year before Ginny even came along."

Ginny laughed along with Fred and George as Ron looked torn between wanting to throw his food at them and not risking the waste. Harry shook his head and chuckled while Hermione vanished the confetti in her hair. Fred subtly put more back in as he strolled along behind her.

"Mum wouldn't care anyway," said Ron, though he was still vividly red. "She's too busy owling every other parent she knows about who's got what tattoos so she can establish all the pairs. I blame you two," he added, turning his glare onto Harry and Ginny.

Hermione ceased her confetti extraction. "Just because their tattoos match?"

"Having the tattoos match make all the matchmaking difference, Herms!" cried George, nudging Ginny out of the way so he and Fred could sandwich the curly-haired witch between them. "I've had an earful—"

"Some of us have had _two_ ," chimed Fred, rubbing his earlobes.

"—of the rumors floating around about these marks," finished George, waggling his fingers and showing off his dotted silver design.

"Aye, word's out that they're indicators of designated pairs," said Fred. "Marks of _couples_ , if you know what we mean."

"It's _branding people as lovers_ ," said George, enunciating each syllable unnecessarily. "In case you weren't sure. The only people immune are kiddies. I'm assuming anyone under seventeen."

Hermione, having been awoken by Kingsley's owl and then ushered to a private meeting that included Bill Weasley, Professor McGonagall, Padma Patil, and (surprisingly enough) Draco Malfoy, was already well aware of the implications of the tattoos and the books. But this was the first time she'd seen paired couples with matching marks up close.

"Who else have already found their matches?" asked Hermione.

"Mum and Dad, of course," said Ginny. "Bill and Fleur as well. Lovebirds are even more sickening now."

"Their tattoos are gold, have you seen?" added Ron.

"I'm assuming it's because they're magically bonded," said Ginny. "Since Harry's and mine are still silver since we aren't married."

"So everyone who's a couple have matching tattoos?" asked Hermione.

"Not quite," said Ginny, trying to step out of Fred's suddenly complex, dance-like movement to keep her hand hostage.

"Me and Angelina," said George, wincing. He tucked Harry's hand in the crook of his elbow despite the younger man trying to wrench his arm back.

"Well, we never said they were marks of _official_ couples," said Fred, tugging Ginny into an awkward spin and then a violent dip that had her hair brushing the cobblestone.

George attempted a similar move with Harry, who wound up in a mild chokehold instead. "What if it's meant to show the couples themselves that they're compatible?"

Hermione's lips thinned into a straight line. "You two are insinuating that these are _matchmaking tattoos_?"

George released Harry just in time for Fred to spin Ginny into Harry's arms.

"We're not really _insinuating_ anything, love," said George, skipping around so he could lean his head against Hermione's shoulder.

Fred reached for her left hand with his own, clasping them into a formal handshake. "The term implies some form of subtlety after all."

"And honestly, Hermione," said George, rubbing his cheek against hers. "We're not known for our subtlety."

Fred used his ring finger to rub her own and turned their hands over so his geometric design was presented to her. "We're just a bit too obvious about it all, don't you think?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

* * *

In spite of the Minister's pleas, the day had been less of a celebration of the fallen and more of a festive background to speculation over the new magical phenomenon as a means to bide time before Kingsley could hold a press conference with a more comprehensive explanation.

The fireworks had honestly been the only portion of the day that felt _genuine_. The whispers were silenced into reverence as the entire Weasley family's collaborative creativity lit up the star-studded sky like aurora borealis. The twins had revealed the helping hands of Arthur, Molly, Bill, Charlie, Percy, Ron, Ginny, and even Fleur in the most majestic display of lights anyone had ever seen. Not for the first time—and certainly not the last—Hermione marveled at the spectacular magic Fred and George could wield. For a second, she even managed to forget the tattoo on her finger and its match on Fred's.

The night ended on a brilliant note, serving the purpose of the Anniversary Festival so there was more than enough support for it to become an annual event. The following day, however, shattered the note into a discordant tone that resonated throughout the entire globe.

The speculations and rumors exploded once the people realized that the married and magically bonded couples often had matching golden tattoos, but most disconcerting were bonded couples whose tattoos did not match and remained silver. Not only did it shake relationships, existing and potential, but the tattoos also brought about the fears of evil tampering.

Current and former Hogwarts professors including Trelawney, Hagrid, and Slughorn were bombarded with owls, asking for any idea or speculation about the tattoos. Known Unspeakables were hounded for answers, and even Luna and Xenophilius Lovegood were consulted. Poor Harry had been stopped in the middle of his grocery shopping by several older ladies who begged him to take up arms against this magical force.

The rest of the magical world, however, turned to the ordeal with amusement. The deep-seated corruption and archaic ideals of the magical European island had been the butt of jokes abroad, and so the population crisis and the subsequent tattoo debacle only fueled the inferno. Citizens abroad had also been subject to the phenomenon, increasing the news flow across the globe. The people were already steeped in anxiety and trepidation; the fact that they were the laughingstock of the world only raised the public level of outcry.

Kingsley upheld his promise, however, and on the third day, he held a press release in the Ministry Atrium, announcing the existence of the books that had been thoroughly vetted for magical tampering and were deemed benign. Letters were sent out, offering every citizen the option of knowing their book-mandated match. The further explained their relation to the tattoos, revealing the contents of each book and confirming the speculations that the phenomenon was linked to the population decline.

Kingsley had done his best to project a confident force to withstand the doubts and fears saturating the atmosphere of the press, but because of his position as _Acting_ Minister, he didn't yet have the full capabilities of a Minister of Magic and was unable to hold back the influence of the Wizengamot. The court had deemed the information insufficient and in no way politically or socially helpful. Upon hearing of the books' connections to the tattoos, their earlier panic over the population decline combined with the ever-present political machinations to coalesce into the second purpose of the press conference: the announcement of the Marriage Incentive.

Capitalizing on the concept of bonded pairs and soul mates to romanticize the phenomenon, the Wizengamot decided on an act that would motivate single residents into marrying and starting families. They hoped the books' appearances as a matchmaking option would make the Incentive more palatable.

Clearly, it was a great idea.

* * *

"So the bloody solution is to release the information of the lists in the books to the public for a fee and then offering bloody _tax breaks_ to anyone who marries and-or procreates?" sighed Charlie at the following Weasley Sunday Brunch, a full week after the Festival.

"It's no wonder we're the laughingstock of the Wizarding World," said Ron, swishing his wand and neatly laying down the green tablecloth.

"You should hear the Romanians go on and on about karma, and they're right," said Charlie.

"Centuries of corruption punished by a war and the intervention of the Powers-That-Be through magical _branding_ ," sighed Percy.

Hermione and Bill exchanged brief grimaces as the rest of the family bustled around them, setting the table and putting last-minute touches on the food.

"Honestly, this could've been a lot worse," said Arthur, bringing out the enormous roast.

"We're in the throes of some sort of magical force that's branding us into pairs so we can breed and eliminate the population crisis," said Ginny blandly, carrying in the bowl of steamed vegetables. "Not bad at all."

"I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or genuine anymore," muttered Charlie, setting down the Yorkshire pudding.

"Your father is right," said Molly, waving her wand and scooting all the chairs back from the table. "We're all very lucky our government has progressed just enough to implement an _Incentive_ rather than a _Law_."

Harry choked on his pumpkin juice. "A _law_?!"

"Oh, yes," said Arthur. "Early in the magical world's self-imposed exile from the Muggle Inquisition, a minor Marriage Law had been imposed, requiring citizens by the age of seventeen to marry."

"Tuck in, my dears," said Molly as everyone took their seats.

"All this talk of imposed marriage really kicks up the appetite," said Fred, his eyebrow raised at Ron, who had already filled his plate up.

"Thankfully, it was anyone of their choosing, but it was still a time when arranged marriages were the norm. The choice was an illusion. Families scrambled to find suitable partners for their children, and those left behind often suffered. Pass the greens, please, Fleur. Thank you, dear," continued Arthur. "Benefits ranging from monetary to political were given to those who produced children. Exile to other countries was the only other option for those who refused to marry within the community, and outright wand-snapping was enforced for those who refused to adhered to the law."

"That seems counterproductive," said Ron.

"Not so," said Molly. "No one refused. Who _honestly_ wanted to leave the community and their families during such a tumultuous period? Even with the cleverly kooky like Wendelin the Weird, it was dangerous for witches and wizards."

"All right, so it's not as bad as being mandated to marry our matches or marry anyone as a whole, but it's still proof that the Wizengamot's fiddling around," said Harry. "Who's to say that there's no ulterior motive?"

"Let's not mention the moral questionability of basing relationships on the necessity of children, which could contribute to a potentially negative kindship trend in the future, especially if matched pairs weren't guaranteed happily-forever-after's and divorced after having said children," added Hermione.

Arthur took his turn choking on his drink. "Divorce?"

"Hermione, dear, magical folk don't really have divorce," said George.

"We have a different d-word," said Fred.

"Death," echoed the twins.

"That's even better," sighed Hermione, stabbing a potato wedge a bit too harshly.

"What's the likelihood that this is all some sort of plot by someone in the Ministry anyway?" asked Ron, serving himself seconds.

"You mean—what? That they fabricated the books and chose the couples based on…economic and political gains?" asked Percy. He paused, eyebrows raised. "It's believable."

"Boys," said Arthur sternly. "Kingsley has it on good authority that those books are authentic. The arrival of each of them substantiate the significance of deeper magic that we may never come close to understanding."

"Besides, if this was done the whim of Ministry officials, we wouldn't have an Incentive," said Bill, exchanging another glance with Hermione. "They'd enforce it as a mandate or like Dad said—a law. This Incentive is more of an encouragement, not a demand. No one's _making_ anyone do a thing."

"But isn't it?" asked Hermione quietly, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. Everyone flinched as her knife cut through her roast. "Ginny's right—these tattoos are branding us like brood mares."

"I agree."

Fred continued to eat, unfazed by everyone's attention.

"Come again?" asked Fleur.

"What?" Fred shrugged and took a sip of his pumpkin juice. "Regardless of ancient magic or some lunatic coming 'round, casting tattoo charms on us when we're all unawares, it's unethical to stamp us and make believe that finding love's as simple as _literally_ finding someone who matches up with you."

Hermione pursed her lips but kept them firmly shut. After he'd presented her with his design, she'd involuntarily cringed back, yanking her hand out of his. She tried to hide the horrified grimace, but Fred had still managed to catch it, and to his credit, he took it in his stride.

"Don't worry, love," he'd said, bowing grandly. "With this many people, there's bound to be a smaller degree of variation in the designs, eh? Maybe we're not as _completely_ matched as it seems."

She'd tried to say something—anything, really—to keep him from taking any further offense from her reaction, but he'd brushed it off with a good-natured grin before darting off with his twin. They saw each other briefly throughout the day, but when neither of them really knew what to say after Hermione's violent reaction, it seemed they both felt it best to avoid verbal interaction.

Unfortunately, when they were sat right across from each other, the endeavor was made a bit more difficult.

"Besides," he continued, still not making eye contact with Hermione despite supporting her argument. "I don't know if ancient magic would be so bloody obvious. Wouldn't it just make us all fall in love with whomever we should and be done with it? Why have the books and the tattoos?"

Her pursed lips relaxed, and the tension moved to her eyebrows as Hermione thought about it.

"Choice," said Harry.

Bill sat up, and Hermione brightened.

" _If_ it was ancient magic or some sort, it could be showing us our options," said Harry, shrugging. "It left the choice of taking that road up to us as individuals."

"If we were magicked into falling in love with whomever we were paired up with, it'd be even more morally questionable," muttered Hermione.

"We'd have no agency," said Bill, frowning and nodding in agreement.

"But the books _and_ the tattoos?" asked Ginny. "Isn't that a bit heavy-handed for something so allegedly powerful and mythical?"

Fleur shrugged. "Reassurance, perhaps? Most of ze population thought zis was all Dark magic until ze news of ze books was released, and if Kingsley vouches for ze people who found ze books, zen it encourages the people to pursue zeir matches if zey so choose."

"I'm sure if you asked his portrait, even Dumbledore would vouch for them," said Molly.

"Oh, yeah, because as wise and powerful as Dumbledore was, the man was a bit off kilter sometimes," said Fred. "Which, you know, is on track for ancient magic if it thinks some of these pairs are in any way viable."

Hermione's fork screeched across the plate. "Please to see you think this is all a joke, Fred. True to form."

"Of course I'm trying to play it off as a joke," he said, cocking an eyebrow. "Because it _is_ a joke. It's a stupid tattoo trying to play matchmaker like you said, not the catalyst to the end of the world that you're twitching like it is."

The fork was set down as Hermione glared at him. "You _know_ I've had to spend most of my life in this world trying to keep others from dictating my place in it, and now you're poking fun of another aspect of my life they're trying to meddle with?"

Ginny reached over to set her hand on Hermione's arm. "I don't—"

"Honestly, Granger, this is probably one of the best outcomes of what could be a potentially disastrous situation. Would you rather they throw off all alleged pretension and set it up as a law?"

"The _best_?!" cried Hermione. "The best would be if the Ministry had simply released the information about the books and let it be. Do you have any idea who'd benefit the most out of the Incentive? Did you bother reading between the lines of the books and the pro-birth propaganda they're blaring all over the streets?"

"Hermione," said Harry, trying to placate her before she could really pick up steam.

But it seems he was a little rusty in his tactics with dealing with his friends because he was late.

"Pureblood elitists have finally figured out that they're dying out because of interbreeding, so the only way they can benefit from the Incentive is to marry and procreate with _Muggleborns_. You can only imagine the way people like bloody Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson and the rest of those bigots, who likely haven't learned their lesson since the war will try to ingratiate themselves into our lives as a means to worm their way back into the good graces of the public and regain their foothold in the system—"

"And since _when_ were you paired with a hateful, pureblood bigot, Hermione? Last I checked, _you and I_ matched—angles and all—not bloody Marcus Flint or Adrian Pucey."

"You're missing the point, Fred!"

"To top it off, you're accusing the Minister— _Shackle-Kings_ , of all people—of playing into the pureblood elitist agenda—"

Hermione clenched her fists on the edge of the table. _How_ Fred managed to hit the exact buttons that she was worried about pressing and had opted not to. "I am _not_ accusing Kingsley of anything. I understand the pressures he faces being thrust into a flawed system and having to establish peace with conflict. But the fact of the matter is that he can't always stifle the louder voices of too many influential people with agendas in the middle of a _crisis_. The point—"

Fred rolled his eyes. "No, sweetheart, the point you're making is that your idealistic world states that leaving us all alone in our little realities ensures the survival of our community when all signs point otherwise."

"There's a vast difference between leaving people alone and dictating their love lives for the sake of reproduction!"

Fred set his utensils down and leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. "Granger, I don't know what you've been hearing anymore. No one's dictating anything but these ridiculous books and tattoos, and if it _is_ the work of ancient magic, then it comes with good reason because our populations been dwindling for the past couple centuries, and it's beyond high time we did something about it. I thought you were a little more realistic than this."

Hermione shot to her feet, knocking her chair back as her hair crackled, static pulling strands out of its constraining plait. "That's rich coming from _you_ , Fred Weasley!"

"What—you think that because I can make a living off my sense of humor that I don't have a foot planted firmly on the ground?!" asked Fred, coolly coming to his feet as well. "Sounds to me like you're displeased with the ancient magic's offer for your best compatible match, eh?"

She threw her hands up in the air. "Of course I am! You're not ready to commit to one brand of toilet paper, let alone a relationship—Merlin forbid a _marriage_!"

"And _you_ are?!" he fired back.

George slammed his fists on the table, breaking everyone's rapt concentration on the fight they'd never expect seeing. "You know what _I'm_ ready for?!" he cried shrilly. "Alcohol!"

Surprisingly enough, it was Molly who jumped up and Summoned a bottle of Ogden's Finest straight to her hand. "We're all a bit rattled by this tattoo foolishness, so I think we should sit our bottoms back down and have a shot—"

"Perhaps _four_ ," said Percy, adjusting his spectacles.

"—as celebration that _none of us_ are being _forced_ or _coerced_ to be with _anyone_ we _don't_ want to be with, all right?!" concluded George as Bill conjured shot glasses in front of everyone at the table.

"Hear, hear," said Ron, holding up his glass to be filled.

Hermione, after catching Arthur and Molly's pleading stares, dropped back down onto her chair, which Harry had righted just in time. Fred shot her a smile that didn't reach his eyes as he bowed his head and took his seat again with a flourish. Both of their glasses had been filled first, and with a sarcastic toast toward each other, silver designs on display, they were the first to down their portions. It was Molly, however, who knocked back the most shots, worry fueling her old championship-winning drinking skills.

So, pleasantly buzzed in spite of her anxiety, she cornered Hermione in the kitchen after dinner, when everyone had retired to the living room to relax by the open windows and the summer breeze. The younger woman had taken advantage of the window by the sink as she scrubbed dishes by hand, closing her eyes against the breeze and letting it blow stray strands of hair from her face.

Molly stepped up beside the younger witch and rubbed her back soothingly. "I know it's difficult, having one foot in one world and the other in a second."

"Did I overreact, Molly?" asked Hermione, her scrubbing slowing down.

"As someone who'd been an almost-victim to an arranged marriage, I think you're well within your rights to be suspicious of anything telling you who to marry and why," answered Molly. "But remember that magical folk are far outnumbered by Muggles. It's been many centuries since a population decline threatened the Muggle communities, whereas this is a problem that's been plaguing our culture."

"It's not an excuse," said Hermione adamantly.

"I didn't say it was, darling." Molly reached up to brush Hermione's hair back behind her ears. "I meant it as an explanation for why our government is getting a bit desperate. Bill and Ginny were right. The fact that the Ministry released this as an incentive, regardless of their target demographic, says a lot about how far it's come from the corruption and despicability of years past."

"I'm genuinely trying not to be stubborn about this, but…" Hermione shook her head and stopped scrubbing, bending to rest her elbows on the edge of the counter.

Molly reached into the sink to rid Hermione of the dishes in her hands and took her smaller, sudsy hands in her own, turning the girl to face her. "Listen to me, Hermione Granger, you have my utmost support if you decide to damn the Incentive and live the rest of your life single and happy. You don't have to marry Fred."

Hermione sighed and bowed her head.

"You can marry Charlie or George or Ron or—"

"Molly!" cried Hermione, though her lips tugged upward in a smile.

The two women laughed, and Molly tugged her honorary daughter into a hug.

"Don't mind Fred either, dear," continued Molly. "He's just smarting over the fact that he wouldn't exactly be your first choice."

Hermione sighed, pulling away from the hug and not meeting Molly's eyes. "It's not…" She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, turning back to the dishes. "It's just… He's…"

Molly only chuckled. "Not anything you're looking for?"

" _Yes,"_ groaned Hermione, shaking her head. "He's a great man, I know. He's done well for himself, and I'm sure he's a catch in his own right."

"But?" prompted Molly.

"But he's too immature," muttered Hermione, grimacing. "I'm sorry, Molly. He's just such a _clown_. Imagine trying to have a mature conversation with him. It'd likely be riddled with puns and jokes and innuendo, and you know me. I'd probably hit him with a book before attempting to discuss it with him."

"For what it's worth, dear, that row you had with him over my roast seemed mature enough."

Hermione winced but chose to remain silent. Meanwhile, around the corner stood Fred, leaning against the jamb and listening to the conversation, scowling though his mind whirred.

Molly sighed. "He's not _entirely_ trapped in a six-year-old's mentality, dear. Give him a chance."

"Even if he wanted one," chuckled Hermione, "I'll need a lot of convincing."


	4. Chapter 4

**Four**

* * *

Draco and most of the other students of his year had opted not to return to Hogwarts to repeat their otherwise wasted seventh year. Even the Gilded Trio had skipped out on the Eighth Year the school board had offered.

With good reason.

So having to spend the past three evenings in the Hogwarts Library with his old Transfiguration professor, two former swotty classmates, and a Weasley who leaned to the lupine? It certainly felt like he was repeating the year.

However, it wasn't as if he had much else to do. Draco's social calendar was close to nonexistent. Those with which he wished to remain friends refused to acknowledge him; those who wished to call him friend, he refused to acknowledge. He "worked" at St. Mungo's as a Junior Healer, but it was only by title. For all the workload and recognition he got, he may as well have been a ghost.

The five of them were planted in the Restricted Section, still hacking their way through the material before they moved onto other resources. They'd pushed together three tables to accommodate the post-hurricane battleground of books, scrolls, and loose parchment that even _seemed somewhat related_ to the phenomenon. They'd only been there for four hours this time around, but their lack of progress and Draco's deteriorating mood made time slower.

"We wouldn't even need to be doing all this research if this phenomenon had come about with more credibility," said Draco offhandedly, twirling an eagle-feather quill between his fingers. "If only this had all been carved on an ancient stone that surfaced in the middle of a volcanic explosion or some shite."

McGonagall ignored him—as she'd been doing for the past four hours when he offered useless information. The Ravenclaw Patil rolled her eyes, and Draco was quite impressed her eyeballs hadn't fallen out yet for all the rolling they'd done. The non-useless Weasley winced, but Draco saw the corners of his mouth and shoulders twitch in agreement. Granger took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and turned a page.

"Only we'd all be dead," pointed out Weasley.

"And so we wouldn't have to worry about any of this," said Draco matter-of-factly.

"Mr. Malfoy, the public would question the arrival of the books and marks even if they were announced, to great pomp and fanfare, by the ghosts of the Four Founders themselves," said McGonagall, pulling off her spectacles to rub the bridge of her nose.

Draco threw up his hands and sat back in his chair. "So even you accept the futility of this mission!"

"I merely acknowledged the public's inescapable skepticism," said McGonagall. "I said nothing of the alleged futility of finding answers."

"We've been at this for a week now, and we haven't found a _lick_ of ink even alluding to anything like this happening before or what it could possibly be," protested Draco.

At least the Ravenclaw was rampaging through the twenty-pound books out of sheer frustration from the lack of knowledge. McGonagall and Granger were meticulously picking through shelves and ruining their eyesight in the name of Gryffindor sense of duty for the greater good. Weasley was off in his own little world. He'd picked up a grand total of five books, scanning through four and casting spells on the fifth, and then spent the rest of the time doodling on parchments.

"Do you mind toning down your pessimism? If I wanted that kind of acid in my life, I'd eat straight sulfur."

Draco slowly turned to look at Patil. "Did you already inhale that much dust to addle your mind? Straight sulfur, Patil? Would you like to go have a chat with Pomfrey?"

"Let's not start this, please," said Granger, properly speaking up apart from tossing around various theories and then quieting once more.

Which, Draco admitted, was ultimately for the best. If she tried handling the conversation and fighting with Draco, the Restricted Section would likely been shambles or in flames. Perhaps both.

"Are you alluding to giving it all up?" asked Patil, glaring at him over another enormous book that could probably crush her ribcage. "Because if we don't produce any sort of answer, I doubt the people would be placated if Kingsley was to say something along th lines of, 'Trust me; it's all fine.'"

" _Placate_ ," scoffed Draco, scowling down at a note he'd scribbled that he couldn't even decipher anymore. He crossed it out harshly. "We're not here to placate anyone. The _Incentive_ was meant to do the placating, and look where that got us. People thinking we forged the books to supplement socio-political machinations to manipulate the entire population into becoming brood mares."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Weasley grin at a glowering Granger.

"I blame you, by the way," added Draco, turning his frown onto Patil, "since you contributed your own stupid ideas."

"And yours was exile and wand-snapping!" hissed Patil, chucking a crumpled ball of parchment at his head.

Draco dodged it easily. "At least _my_ idea was direct and unequivocally plain in its intention. We're dying out, so we've all got to have kids to make sure that doesn't happen, and if you're not willing to do that, get out. I didn't try to make _shit_ sound like _chocolate._ "

Patel shook her head. "Why did the Powers That Be even want you involved in this mess? All you're doing is antagonizing us."

"Perhaps I'm the voice of pragmatism in the face of your obnoxious positivity," retorted Draco, ready to retaliate with his own crumpled parchment projectile when all the scraps rose into the air and shot into the wastebasket.

Granger set down her wand, eyeing both Draco and Patil and then fixing her glower back at Weasley when he flicked a tiny wad of paper at her.

"Perhaps Mr. Malfoy's involvement was to make a point," said McGonagall, eyes never straying from her book.

"Pardon?" gritted out Draco.

"May I ask who your match is, Mr. Malfoy?" asked McGonagall, shooting him a look over the top of her spectacles.

Patio's eyes widened, and both Weasley and Granger dropped any pretense of paying attention to their work.

"Isn't Astoria…?" trailed off Patil, glancing back and forth between McGonagall's knowing look and Draco's reddening neck and ears. "But I thought that since you were still with her—"

"Astoria was chosen by my parents long before she was toilet-trained," said Draco bitterly, turning back to his meager notes, glaring at them so hard that it was a surprise they weren't on fire yet. "Your bloody Powers That Be and Have Too Much Leisure Time chose _Julianne Adoria._ "

Patio's eyebrows shot up. "Julianne? You mean the Mu—oh. _Oh._ Malfoy, you wouldn't just be the poster child of the Incentive, the marks, and the books. You'd be the icon for the new age of the Wizarding World."

"Or the fucking burning effigy of the Ministry's new era of incessant meddling," hissed Draco.

Bill burst out laughing, and even McGonagall smirked.

Granger sighed and closed her book with a more dramatic bang than she'd usually display with her beloved inanimate objects. "All right then," she said, leaning back in her chair and rubbing her temples. Her absurdly bushy hair that he'd thought she'd tamed had begun to show its old unruly tendencies. "Can we come to any other conclusion tonight— _apart_ from Malfoy's love life?"

Draco scoffed. "I conclude that this entire endeavor is pointle—"

"I've got something."

Weasley brought his black dragonskin-booted feet down from the chair in front of him with a muffled thud and turned to face McGonagall and Granger, who sat directly in front of him. He held up one of the parchments he'd been scribbling on, and Patil stood to come around to the other women's side of the able.

"When the Minister called me and Hermione in to see the books for the first time, I took the liberty of casting a few basic Curse-Breaking diagnostic spells, but when nothing came up, I turned to one of the last resorts of Curse Breakers," he explained. "These lines are the webbing of magic that are the foundations of enchantments. We dismantle the spell from its very origins using these lines, but it's incredibly volatile. The way magic functions is dependent on the pattern of the webbing. The magic that we're accustomed to is like this."

He tapped the sketch, the lines suddenly coming alive in a loose, flexible pattern to undulate on the paper. Draco craned his neck to see, tipping backward as he refused to acquiesce and stand from his chair.

Weasley tapped the parchment again, and the lines tightening into a dense metric. "This kind of webbing is more rigid, aimed to remain in on itself— _to contain_. This is the kind of magic I found on the books."

"You're making quite a presumptuous statement," said Draco, cocking an eyebrow and crossing his arms over this chest.

"You're saying the books are essentially harmless, that its composition prevents it from influencing us," said Granger. "What if the webbing warps? Who's to say that the magic won't change so that it can be as mobile as your first example?"

"This phenomenon is completely unprecedented and therefore unpredictable," said Draco. "There's not telling if the magic is stable enough to maintain that structure?"

"Magic can have a life of its own, but even humans often stick to their natures," said McGonagall. "Casting _Alohamora_ on a person doesn't unlock their deepest secrets to you."

"The books' enchantments are contained within each," said Weasley. "It _shouldn't_ affect any of us."

Patil leaned forward. "But when I touched it—"

" _You_ affected the _book_ ," said Granger, drumming her fingers on the table and staring unseeingly at the lamp in front of her. "The book didn't affect you."

"Like the Book and Quill of Admittance," said Weasley, which shifted the atmosphere of the room from skepticism to serious consideration and acceptance. "I'm sure if we went and checked the magical webbing of the Quill, it'd be similar, if not identical, to the webbing of the books you three found."

"So it implies the existence of the books shouldn't have any sort of influence on us," said McGonagall. "People shouldn't be falling in love with whomever the books and these markings dictate."

"Theoretically," pointed out Granger.

"Well, _clearly_ ," said Draco, uncrossing his arms and rolling up his parchment and stuffing it into his bag. "Do you see me falling all over myself for _Julianne Adoria_?"

"It's still the early days," said Granger warily, rubbing at the silver mark on her finger. "Who knows what might change?"

"Well, on that _delightful_ note, I am bowing out for the evening," said Draco, waving his wand and sending his materials into his bag as well. "If I'm going to potentially be brainwashed into thinking that I'm in love with— _ugh—_ then I'm going to enjoy my last days of mental clarity in peace. I have an early shift at St. Mungo's, and I've lost enough sleep over this buffoonery."

He picked up his discarded robes, noting that none of the others seemed inclined to leave as well. He saluted McGonagall and Patil, winced at Weasley, and fully ignored Granger before he strode out of the library. Perhaps he'd make a pit stop at his favorite hole-in-the-wall café in Diagon Alley. The proprietors couldn't care less that their best customer was a former Death Eater with serious personality flaws, though now with more scrupulous morals. Granted, he'd have to pass by the Weasley Shop of Horrors and Tomfoolery, but the garish lights hardly dissuaded him from getting a decent meal.

At least that _had been_ his plan.

As he'd passed the joke shop, he saw two people through the glass doors, on their way out. One, he could stand, at least for as long as he wasn't within pranking distance—which was a fairly wide berth. The second, however, had him seriously contemplating a Disillusionment Charm because he refused to be the Malfoy that ran from a girl. Again.

The Weasley twin with both ears stepped out first and held the door open for none other than Julianne Adoria, who was adjusting her shoulder-length, wavy dark hair into a knot on the top of her head. Draco saw the jagged lines that intertwined smoothly around her ring finger, and his right eye twitched.

Since when was she friends with the Weasleys?

Stupid question—she was a Muggleborn. Of course she'd be friends with the Weasleys. And trust the cosmos to be so against Draco that she was friends with the hellion twins too.

Mid-laugh, Julianne stopped and spotted Draco. Her eyebrows rose higher the longer their gazes held, though she smiled courteously. "Evening, Mr. Malfoy."

Draco nodded curtly and nearly slapped himself in the face for staying in place long enough to interact with her. The Weasley twin glanced between the two of them and didn't bother hiding his amused grin.

"I might not have gone to Hogwarts with you lot, but I'm certain you've fulfilled your quota of being an arsehole for this lifetime," she chuckled, trying to joke with her soft, New Zealand lilt and a playful smile that grated on Draco's nerves. "Like to try that again? _Good evening, Draco_."

* * *

Julianne watched the Malfoy Heir and her alleged cosmic match struggle with himself, his pointy chin twitching as he clenched his jaw and pulled his thin lips back into a placid, painful smile. She'd much of him already—from first the global and now the local media and rom the friends she'd quickly made upon her reentry onto English soil. Her uncle, however, had installed the importance of unbiased first impressions, which was why she even bothered with the courtesies.

But the moment she saw Draco Malfoy standing on the street and looking ready to bolt upon seeing her, she just couldn't stop herself.

"Only since you seem to have forgotten them, Mr. Malfoy," she said, tucking her hands into the pockets of her trousers. Clearing her throat, Jules stepped closer. "How are you?"

He stood ramrod straight, every muscle in perfect position, as per the standards of "proper society." Malfoy's upper lip twitched into the beginnings of a sneer before he schooled it back. However polite he tried to make his gestures, though, that mouth was impossible.

"Before two days ago, I was blissful, thank you," he said and then finished with, "in my ignorance of your existence."

She couldn't help laughing. "That was pretty good, Draco." His eye twitched at her casual use of his given name, which made her chuckle more. "Then it's my utmost pleasure to burden you with knowledge."

"Unfortunately, my life is not meant to be tailored to your pleasure, so I must relieve myself of that burden. Good evening, Miss Adoria," he gritted out. He nodded stiffly at Fred, turned on his heel, and walked back down the path to the Leaky Cauldron. Despite his stride being just as socially acceptable as his posture, he still dragged behind him the attitude of a petulant child.

"You were _absolutely_ flirting with the git, did you know that?" said Fred as Julianne turned back to him. His casual observation was more like an announcement, the way he practically bellowed it out to the Alley.

"Theres a difference between breaking the ice and shattering it to see how he'll handle himself in icy waters, Fred," said Julianne, feeling more than a bit pleased with her findings.

"Bloody match made in heaven, you two," said Fred, shaking his head and chuckling to himself. "Just get hitched now and call it a life."

"Oh, yes," said Julianna, shooting him a sarcastic look. "The theme will be red—for the blood that we'd likely shed." She stretched her arms out in front of her, elbows cracking. "You saw his face—he had no idea what to do."

"Of course I did. With great giddiness, might I add," said Fred. "I wasn't sure if it was fear of you being the type to hex him on the spot or the type to fall over yourself for his bank account."

"He'd be an idiot if he thought I'd give a flying, kaleidoscopic shit about his bank account," she said, rolling her eyes and watching Malfoy's back disappear around the corner. "He made his assumptions about how I'd treat him and wound up meeting his impression of me rather than _me_."

She turned back to Fred and found him scrutinizing her intently. "What?"

Fred shrugged. "Well, at least the Powers That Be recognized the value of witty repartee."

"That's what you consider witty repartee?" Julianne scoffed. "That was more like the verbal warm-up to a duel."

Fred leaned heavily on her smaller frame and tapped his lower lip. "So…foreplay?"

Julianne laughingly slipped out from under his weight so he stumbled to the side. "This is just another one of those times when I'm thankful my parents sent me to New Zealand."

"And miss out on the lifetime of excitement that the nineties had been?" laughed Fred. "I thought you'd be more daring than that."

Julianne snorted. "So sorry I'm not living up to your expectations."

"Don't worry. I'll just lower my standards to meet your reality then," said Fred. "I'm getting practice with that situation now that Hermione thinks I can't even have a relationship with toilet paper, let alone another human being."

The younger girl smirked. "That's quite a shitty opinion she's got of you."

"Toilet humor aside, I've been seriously contemplating teaching little Miss Granger a lesson about donkeys and making assumptions," said Fred.

"Will you raise her standards to meet your reality?"

"Of course not. I'm going to live _down_ to her expectations."

 _The man's a walking novel waiting to happen,_ thought Julianne with a heavy sigh. "Have you ever thought about just talking to the woman and telling her that you're offended she thinks so little of you?"

Fred squeezed her shoulders a little tighter—a gesture more patronizing than affectionate. "Oh, Jules, Jules, Jules," he said dramatically. "My dear little gem—"

"Don't call me that."

"Don't you know, darling? I can't _talk_ to Hermione," he said, an evil, manic glint in his eye. "After all, actions speak louder than words."


	5. Chapter 5

**Five**

* * *

Ginny and Harry strolled through the sparkling glass doors of the newly-renovated Flourish and Blotts, still marveling at the new additions and the undeniable familiarity from years past that persisted.

It'd been one of the few shops that kept its doors open to the public, but the choice had taken its toll. Not long after the war, the owners retired and passed on the keys to the bookshop. There were many eager offers to revamp the store and "carry it into the new age," but none of them were good enough. Only Hermione promised to keep its name and maintain its history and traditions while also promising to help it grow as a place for learning. She built a third story to accommodate a larger personal office as a base for her research and projects, but everything else remained.

The wood and brass registers were the same, ones that had rung up Ginny's grandparents' schoolbooks and her own, though they gleamed with a new finish. The floor, walls, and ceiling bore the same past and absorbed the same excitement, passion, and emotional overflow that books elicited from the patrons. And people of Wizarding London continued to see it as their primary source of the written word, even more so now that the Brightest Witch of Her Age was at its helm.

During its grand reopening, the renovated shop was nearly bursting at the seams, and even as traffic regulated, it still boasted a large daily patronage. These days, however, were at a bit of a higher flow than previous, so there was no real reason why two out of the three clerks were bickering in the midst of the noontime rush.

Sam worked the registers with an easy camaraderie, keeping each party patient. Rachel and Noah, however, contributed nothing to the hustle of the bookstore.

"Where _else_ would a book about rites and rituals go?" asked the young wizard with closely-cropped hair and a carefully-chosen shirt that showed off impressive biceps.

"In the history section," countered the petite brunette, eyes rolling angrily, "as we _hardly_ participate in the ritual consumption of relatives today."

"You make it sound like cannibalism," huffed Noah. "Maybe you should be the one looking up these books. It's not as if they're being eaten alive. They're already dead. Their bones are ground to dust and used as a base for—"

Ginny frowned, having been watching the two clerks bicker for some time already. "Enthralling as this discussion may be." She pointed at the three year old girl with bouncy black curls, glancing back and forth between the two, her lower lip trembling.

Rachel winced, and Noah waved at her guiltily.

"Have either of you seen Hermione?" asked Harry.

"Harry!" snapped Noah. "Where would you put a book about rites and rituals?"

"In the Culture and Traditions section?" offered Harry, pointing over his shoulder.

Ginny laughed as Rachel and Noah stared at him.

Harry grinned crookedly. "What? Eight years as Hermione Granger's best friend, and you thought I wouldn't learn anything?"

Ginny happily slung her arm around Harry's waist as he continued smirking at the clerks. "Let's try it again now—where's Hermione?"

"She's in her office in the backroom," said Rachel, "where we should take these books too. Harry's right. They belong in Culture and Traditions, but there's no space there anymore."

"Then we make room," said Noah, pushing the box of new arrivals away with his foot.

"We can't just shove them on the shelves where we can. We have to make sure the guests can still shop without prying the books out from between the others with their fingernails," said Rachel, skirting around him to get to the box.

"And then what? Wait until the section is shopped down enough to make space? What happens when these books are the ones that'll sell down the section?" countered Noah.

"And what if nothing sells because the books are so tightly packed that no one can get any out?"

"Why don't you just move this books on this endcap back on the main aisle and make a presentation of the rites and rituals books you've got there," said Harry, pointing at the half-shopped display on the end of the nearby aisle of history-related books.

Rachel and Noah gaped at him and then the endcap and then back at him.

"Listen, when you've been in enough bookshops with Hermione, you start picking up on things," said Ginny, laughingly leading Harry away before the clerks got into another spat that would likely result in Harry becoming the unofficial floor manager. "See you two later!"

"Did you see their tattoos?" asked Harry wryly as they weaved around the aisles to the main staircase.

"Perfectly matched," chuckled Ginny.

"Poor sods," said Harry, slinging his arm around Ginny's shoulders and kissing her temple.

As they headed up to the second floor, weaving around the throngs of customers, Ginny realized it wasn't a hard game to guess what Hermione's new project was. It was likely the same topic that brought such heavy traffic to the bookshop on a Tuesday on the last leg of the school year.

"Why don't you stay out here, and I'll bring her out," said Ginny, ducking out from under Harry's arm when they reached the back door of the second level.

Harry grimaced a bit. "Are you sure? If she's in the middle of one of her researching episodes, you might need backup."

Ginny stood on her toes to peck his cheek and nuzzle the side of his nose with her own. "I've got something I want to talk to her about too. Go find a book for Teddy. Preferably one whose pages a little more difficult to rip, eh?"

Harry sighed and pushed his glasses up his nose. "We may as well give the boy a stone tablet."

"And when his accidental magic kicks up and sends everything flying again, I'll make sure to use you as my human shield," said Ginny, skipping off.

She walked through the mahogany door and turned the corner, down through the interior corridor with the same warm browns, creams, and greens that led to Hermione's office.

"Hermione Granger!" she crowed cheerfully. "I'm coming in, and if I see you in another state of nutrition-deprived, scholarly hysteria, I will haul your arse back to Mum's and force-feed you an entire cottage pie!"

Ginny finally reached the door and gave the courtesy knock before forcing her way through the dark wood door. She only got it halfway open before it jammed on a stack of books—which Ginny reckoned had to be some kind of metaphor.

"Ginny, please be careful," said Hermione, her footsteps rushing close to pick up the fallen tomes.

"Tell me to be careful when you're not stacking books in places where they can _only_ be knocked over," said Ginny as she pushed the door open the rest of the way and waved her wand, sending the books up into the air in a neat stack.

Hermione straightened up with a scowl. She didn't look that much worse for wear, thankfully. Her plait was in disarray, two feather quills poking out that Ginny was sure Hermione forgot about already. There weren't any bags under her eyes, which was always a good sign.

Ginny looked around. The walls, which were renovated to be wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling bookcases, had been somewhat decimated since most of its contents were on stacks on the floor. Hermione's systemized mess of books and parchments eliciting another sigh from Ginny. "How's the new project coming along then?"

Hermione shot the redhead a long-suffering glare as she skirted back around the forest of stacked books and and dropped back down behind her desk, Ginny's levitated stack trailing after her and then dropping on an open space on the desk. "It's coming along."

"So it's _that_ confidential?" asked Ginny, biting her lip to hide her smile. "Well, I know how to keep a secret, so let's play a game."

"Let's _not_."

"Does it have anything to do with these little blighters?" Ginny held up her left hand and waggled her fingers.

Hermione scowled and adjusted her bottom on her chair and focused back on her papers.

"I'll take that for the begrudging 'yes' I know it is," muttered Ginny, idly skirting around stacks of books, occasionally studying the covers for something interesting. "Are you collaborating with the top secret discoverers of the books? What've they found?"

The curly-haired witch sighed. "I'm sorry, Ginny. I'm just—I haven't been able to find anything truly worthwhile. The only viable information we've got is more of an assumption than a solid fact."

Ginny looked up. "Anything's progress, I suppose. What is it?"

"Essentially that the foundation of the enchantment on the books keeps it contained within itself, so it shouldn't be magically influencing us," said Hermione, rubbing her forehead and brushing stray curls from her face. "But that certainly doesn't account for its psychological influence. Or how fickle magic can be. For all we know, its foundations _can_ change considering how quickly it came about. Apart from all this, we're not making much headway. Just an abundance of speculation and theory better suited for a Thursday report at the Department of Mysteries."

"Are you frustrated with your fears of what the books and tattoos could be or because you can't find the origins of them?" asked Ginny, opening an enormous book the size of her toros. She squinted at the minuscule runic symbols and shut the book again with a grimace.

"Both still," replied Hermione. "Even _if_ the enchantment holds and maintains that magical containment so we're not affected, that's only speaking of the _magical_ influence. What about the psychological?"

Ginny leaned her elbow on a stack and rested her hand on her hip, frowning. "Then that'd mean it's still entirely continent upon the individual choice of the person."

Hermione shook her head and stood up, swishing her wand to send books back onto their proper shelves. "You can't be certain of that. Your match is the one you want. What if you'd been dating someone else? Would you be unconsciously drawn to Harry then? Or would the draw be from the belief of destiny, that you're allegedly meant to be?"

"Are you asking all that out of speculation or firsthand experience?" asked Ginny, cocking an eyebrow.

The books in the air hovered for a moment before zipping onto their destinations again. Hermione glared at Ginny.

"You walked into that one," said Ginny, crossing her arms over her chest and grinning. "You walked in, made tea, and decided to go for the full English."

"Think what you want and relish in your momentary smugness, but your brother and I aren't meant to be," said Hermione, "and it's an avenue I'm not planning to explore."

"Why not?" asked Ginny, ducking flying books and coming around to lean a hip against the desk. "He's not as bad as you think."

Hermione shook her head, arms still held aloft as she conducted the last of her books back to their places. "I don't know if you're pushing this out of your inclination to matchmake or to defend Fred's honor."

"A bit of both, actually," said Ginny, humming contemplatively. "I like to think of it as a way to satisfy my curiosity."

Hermione glared and then shook her head as the last book zoomed into place. She bent down and shouldered her brown leather bag. "Let's just go. I'm starving."

Ginny pushed off the desk and followed Hermione through the corridor and back out onto the main floor, passing by Noah and Rachel, who'd relocated their bickering to the placement of a presentation table. Harry must've moved downstairs to avoid them.

"I'm going to lunch!" called Hermione.

The two women made their way down the main stairs, but Hermione froze mid-step, halfway down. Ginny knocked into her back and nearly tipped them both over, but Hermione managed to grab hold of the banister for stability—thought what Ginny saw was highly destabilizing.

"What—"

Bouquets upon bouquets of flowers had taken over the entire ground floor in the few minutes that Ginny and Hermione had chatted in the office. The bluebells, pansies, roses, carnations, lilies, tulips, and overall _multitude_ of flowers began to bob and sway on the same rhythmic breeze.

" _The whispers in the morning…"_

* * *

Harry saw Hermione's mouth form the words even from where he stood by the Quidditch magazine rack near the registers:

 _Oh, Merlin, Fred, no._

Hermione's eyes were comically wide in horror as Fred stepped through the veritable jungle of flowers, carrying a single white rose and pointing his wand at his throat to amplify his voice.

Harry watched in mild fear and amusement as the flowers began pouring out a soft melody, a different instrument for each different species. The customers around him observed in surprised delight, peering out from behind aisles and stacks.

"… _of lovers sleeping tight,"_ continued Fred, handing the rose to the same black-curled little girl from earlier as the sunflowers began to beat a soft drum rhythm, _"are rolling by like thunder now, as I look in your eyes."_

"This is _astounding_ magic," Harry saw Ginny say as she peered around Hermione.

" _I hold onto your body and feel each move you make,"_ sang Fred. George playfully conducted the flowers from the doorway in matching dark green robes. _"Your voice is warm and tender, a love that I could not forsake."_

Harry saw Hermione survey her shop in dismay, swaying slightly. Her books, at least, hadn't sprouted flowers themselves, but it was hardly advertising space for whatever shenanigans Fred and George had formulated. Harry wondered if the customers hadn't been grinning, would Hermione have banished the twins from the shop?

"' _Cause you're my lady, and I am your man,"_ sang out Fred, his voice resonating through all three stories, the flowers coming into full harmony and thrumming with truly impressive magic. _"Whenever you reach for me, I'll do all that I can."_

Harry set down the magazine and began striding forward through the flowers and the customers. Hermione had begun to look genuinely agitated, and as Harry drew nearer, he heard her growl of frustration taper into a strange groan and a sniffle.

 _Oh, bugger_ , thought Harry, remembering Hermione's terrible allergies. She was consistent about taking her allergy medicine every spring, but Harry reckoned Fred and George's magically modified singing foliage had its own brand of pollen that Muggle antihistamines couldn't handle.

Hermione shook her head and stomped down the rest of the stairs, gunning for the front door. Fred seemed a bit taken aback by her negative but silent reaction.

" _Even though there may be times,"_ continued Fred valiantly, running over to cut her off, forcing her to sniffle, roll her eyes, and detour around the school textbooks, which had been taken over by chrysanthemums playing brass, _"it seems I'm far away, never wonder where I am, 'cause I am always by your side."_

Hermione circled back, giving Harry a glimpse of red, teary eyes and the frustration painted across her face. Harry saw a flash of red out of the corner of his eye as Ginny shot off the stairs to chase after Hermione—who, Harry thought, must sincerely regret charming the twins' wireless to receive Muggle stations. Harry sighed; the twins had taken a real shine for Celine Dion and her chest-pounding ballads.

"' _Cause you're my lady, and I am your man."_

Fred was relentless. He chased Hermione around her own shop as the flowers bloomed even more and played in earnest, earning several whoops and claps from the customers and even from passerby outside who'd poked their heads in to see what sounded like a full orchestra.

" _Whenever you reach for me, I'll do all that I can. We're heading for something, somewhere I've never been. Sometimes I am frightened, but I'm ready to love, for the power of love."_

It was a bit comical, the irony of the lyrics and the impromptu choreography of the singer and the object of his serenade, but the expression on Hermione's face was too off-putting. Harry joined Ginny on her chase to keep up with Hermione's dodging, but the woman was surprisingly squirrely and Fred himself was really putting his agility through the ringer.

" _The sound of your heart beating made it clear suddenly,"_ sang Fred, _"the feeling that I can't go on is light years away."_

In a move that was more impressive than the magic of the flowers and his singing, Fred caught up to Hermione, snatching her hand and twirling her into his embrace before dipping her and belting out, _"'Cause you're my lady! And I am your—"_

And Hermione sneezed right into his face, opened mouth and all. Harry nearly ran into a table of new releases. To Fred's credit, he didn't drop her, but he did let his wand fall to the side as he hung his head and continued to hold her, bent at the waist. George had clamped his hands over his mouth, already turning red with suppressed guffaws; even the customers were visibly trying not to laugh, waiting for Fred's reaction. The flowers continued to play the powerful ballad, even without their singer.

Fred sighed. "Bless you, love."

Hermione sniffled and then tried to turn her head to the side to sneeze away from him, but she nearly tumbled out of his grip, and he was forced to adjust. She sneezed in his face again. This time, he swung her back up and cast a cleaning charm on his face. Still sniffling and blushing deep red, Hermione conjured a tissue to cover her nose as she sneezed once more.

"Allergies, Fred," she said thickly.

"Right," he muttered, throwing another cleaning charm into his mouth. "Sorry, Hermione."

Hermione nodded curtly before her expression softened and she glanced up at Fred's apologetic pout. "But, erm, thanks?"

He cleared his throat and mustered up that famous Weasley Twin Charm to bow with a flourish and a handsome grin. "Anytime, beautiful."

Harry and Ginny approached the couple, both of them nearly red with suppressed laughter. Harry handed Hermione another tissue.

Fred and George turned to address the crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen, we at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes are blooming with joy to announce the blossoming of Nature's Song—"

Hermione sneezed again.

"Bless you, darling," said Fred.

"Thank you," sniffed Hermione.

"—the power of flowers soon to take root across the country!" continued the twins.

"Serenade your significant other with songs you can pick from our list of Muggle and magical melodies," said George, conjuring a long run of parchment, the aforementioned list.

"And if your voice is the type to make flowers wilt, we've got a line of Carnation Crooners, Tulip Tenors, and Dahlia Divas to lead your musical bouquet to beautiful fruition," said Fred.

"Get them in small bunches or by the flowerbed to suit your serenading sensibilities," said George.

"Soon to be allergy-free!" added Fred, gesturing to Hermione, who tried to blow her nose as discreetly as possible. "To ensure your own lovely flower will shower you with love and affection, not snot and bogies."

Hermione punched him in the arm with her free hand, and Ginny whacked him upside the head. Harry choked on his own spit and coughed to hide his inescapable guffaws. Fred, unfazed by the sudden abuse, handed Hermione another tissue. He kissed her cheek and waved his wand to gather up all the flowers and send them out the door before blasting an air-cleansing charm throughout the shop.

"Sorry about that again, Herms," he said. "Didn't realize you were literally and figuratively allergic to love." He winked at Hermione's glare.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize on behalf of the Weasleys for their interruption," called Hermione, amplifying her congested voice. "Please go back to your perusal and enjoy a complimentary beverage from the refreshment counter."

"On me!" added Fred.

"Next time, Frederick Gideon," growled Hermione, stomping toward the door, still wiping her runny nose, "avoid using my shop to promote new products, _especially_ at the expense of my health."

"I was hoping you'd be swayed by Deline Cion, actually," said Fred.

Hermione froze in her tracks and turned to stare at Fred incredulously. "Pardon?" she sniffed.

George and Ginny exchanged hesitant glances before turning back to the inevitable train wreck. Harry sighed and stared up at the ceiling.

Fred shrugged. "Look, someone up there or down there or elsewhere thinks we should give it a shot, so perhaps we could humor them?"

"Is no on in this family immune to the crippling disease that debilitates Ron's social life?" muttered Ginny, rubbing her forehead. "Tactlessness is clearly a serious problem amongst Weasley men."

Harry patted her back sympathetically. He couldn't say a thing, though, considering he had his own bouts of verbal ineptitude.

"I mean—all right, that might've come out wrong, since your expression isn't exactly encouraging," backtracked Fred, holding up his hands. "I'd like to ask you out on a date. And if I don't muck it up, we can call it a win and say there might be some merit in the ancient magic's compatibility formula?"

Hermione only continued to stare.

"What do you say, Granger?" asked Fred. "D'you think I'm likeable and attractive enough to share one meal and all its connotations with?"

Hermione adjusted the strap of her bag, grabbed Ginny's wrist, and began to tow her out of the shop for an overdue lunch. Harry and Ginny, however, exchanged a pointed look and Harry nodded.

Harry lingered, watching as George turned to his twin with a dry scowl and his hands on his hips.

"Shall I say it then?"

Fred grinned smugly as he made a pit stop to the refreshment counter, dropping a slip to reimburse the shop for the complimentary beverages. "Saying 'I told you so' would imply something went wrong."

"Did you turn into a masochist overnight?" demanded Harry, leading the way back out to the main street. "She turned you down."

"Yes, but now the idea's in her head, innit?" countered Fred.

"What idea? That you're an inconsiderate numpty? You know she's allergic to most flora," said George.

"Especially ones that've been magically altered," added Harry pointedly.

"She knows that I'm trying to woo her," said Fred. "I've the right intentions even if my execution's as shoddy as she'd anticipate from me."

When Harry glanced over his shoulder in incredulity, he saw Fred's devious expression and took a deep breath.

"I don't know if I should be worried for Hermione's sake or excited at the prospect of what seems to be a siege of mischief and tomfoolery," said George.

"Step one, oh, brother mine," said Fred, winking and opening the door to the joke shop. "Step one."

George shook his head. "And what's step two then?"

Fred grinned. "Reparations. Where'd we stash our modified allergy potion again?"

Harry broke off and watched the twins disappear into their shop before setting off down the street to find his girlfriend and best friend. This certainly didn't bode well for Hermione's sanity and Fred's safety.


	6. Chapter 6

**Six**

* * *

Hermione dropped her papers and floundered to catch them as the conga rhythm exploded on her front door. She managed to catch them as they fluttered toward the floor before shoving it back into the manila envelope and cram them back into the top drawer of her dresser.

Heaving a great sigh, she wiped her face with her palms and stomped out of her bedroom.

Only one person could have the inconsiderate gumption to bang on her door in such a way—the same person she could happily sacrifice to the ire of old Mrs. Simms next door. Crookshanks's irritated meowing was beginning to graduate to yowling as he scratched at the door. It could've been that he wanted to let in his favorite Weasley chew toy, but it also could've been to make the pounding cease.

Hermione shooed Crookshanks away so she could open the door a crack. However, it burst open at the tiny allowance. Crookshanks shot across the room in a heartbeat—the same heartbeat it took for Fred to barge into the flat and throw up his two paper bags of groceries and catch them on a levitating spell in an admittedly neat but wholly unnecessary trick.

"Dinner time, Herms!"

Crookshanks slunk out from behind the sofa and bounded over to scratch Fred's navy robes.

Hermione sighed and scrubbed her palms up and down her face. "Call me that one more time, Fred, and I'll make sure you'll never be able to say another word for at least a week. Now _what_ are you doing here?"

Fred paused, studying Hermione's face. It was almost imperceptible, and Hermione would've missed it if she wasn't glaring at him so intently.

"Anyone who's known you for at least twenty minutes knows you'd likely skip dinner after a full week of new releases," said Fred, nodding at the stack of books on her coffee table as he pulled off his outer robes and tossed them onto the couch, Crookshanks trailing after them. "Glad you're still on course for par."

"It's 'par for course,'" said Hermione, pulling out her wand to levitate his robes back to him. "You're not staying."

Fred caught his robes and tossed them back onto the couch again. "Where are the chopping boards and the saucepans, sugarplum? I need to get started on—"

"On _leaving_ ," said Hermione, waving her wand again and sending them hurtling back into his face. Crookshanks meowed in irritation, tiring of chasing after the flying robes. "Please leave. I'm not in the mood. I've still got allergies from your bloody flowers, and I'm frankly getting sick of you too."

Fred caught his robes again and continued to the kitchen, groceries trailing behind him. "Come now, honeypie. I brought all the fixings for your favorite—lasagna."

"That's not my favorite. It's _yours_."

Fred shot her a funny look as he levitated the groceries onto her brown marble island countertop and tossed his robes onto the back of a nearby barstool. "So why do you make it so often when you invite us all for dinner?"

Hermione sniffled. "Fred, I'm _tired_. Would you please—"

"Of course you are!" he cried dramatically, peering into her cupboards and cabinets. "And do you know why?! Because you haven't the _sustenance_ , woman!" He slammed a cupboard door shut for emphasis. "Think of it as picking up two stones with a bird—"

"Killing two birds with one stone," sighed Hermione.

" _Circe_ , how aggressive!"

"Fred!"

"So I'm feeding you _and_ worming my way into your heart, through your stomach."

"You sound like a parasite," said Hermione. "Would you stop rifling through my kitchen, please?" She tugged him away, but when he turned, he already had a saucepan in one hand a meat tenderizer in the other. "What are you doing with that? You don't need—"

"Wrong again!" crowed Fred. He pointed the tenderizer at her like Mjolnir, ready to strike. "It's a metaphor, my little thundercloud. This meal is intended to tenderize you like a slab of tough meat."

"Comparing me to dead animal pieces now?" she demanded, her octave rising. "If you're trying to soften me up, congratulations. You've failed. Your consolation prize is that you can walk out of my flat with your limbs relatively intact. _Leave_."

"Come off it, moonbeam," scoffed Fred, tossing the tenderizer at her and turning to her knife stand. "That's your perspective of the metaphor, but the way I see it, you're a raw being that, given a little rub and some heat, can be the most delectable thing on the menu— _oi!_ Don't wave that thing at me. I'll just take it back now." He snatched the tenderizer out of her raised hand and tossed it back into her utensil drawer.

Hermione tipped her head back and took a deep breath. "I hate you, Fred."

"Ah, but not as much as you love tiramisu."

Hermione froze. Fred grinned.

He produced a small parcel wrapped in periwinkle blue ribbon. "You can have it later, _after dinner_. Along with this little gem." He produced a small vial of clear liquid with pearly green bubbles. "Modified allergy potion—specially made for magically-tinkered pollen. Ah! You can't have it on an empty stomach though. And even though you went to lunch with Ginny and Harry, that was over eight hours ago now, wasn't it? Don't tell me you remember the eight different catalysts to the Goblin Wars, but forgot that food has to be consumed every few hours, eh?"

Fred pulled out a chopping board and waved his wand to summon the ingredients from the paper bags. "Now you've got three options. You can go read your books while I burn down your kitchen or you can stay and keep me company as I burn down your kitchen or you can help me make dinner and prevent any sort of _literal_ fire, though you can't blame me if my charm stokes the flames of our love and inevitable passion."

He reached into the bag one more time and pulled out a small green and purple case of white roses. Hermione's eyes widened, and she took several steps back, her arm coming up to cover her nose.

"It's allergy-free," said Fred dismissively, setting it down in the middle of her kitchen island and adjusting it a bit. "Our seventh batch for quality assurance."

With a runny nose, itchy eyes, and a rising temper, Hermione pulled a few tissues from the box on the counter. "Why are you doing this?"

"Reparations," he replied, pulling out the can opener and going to town on the cans of tomato sauce. "For everything we've done to you."

Hermione watched him splatter her clean countertops before he took the clove of garlic and tossed it into the pan on the stove. "You mean when you ambushed me in my own shop?"

Fred paused as he reached for the matchbox by Hermione's cookbooks and grinned. "Was that a pun? Am- _bush_ -ed?"

"You come into my shop, you infect it with tampered with innocent flora, kickstarted and _amplified_ my allergies, and assault me with your _wailing_!"

Fred shrugged, pulled out a match, and lit it. "You thanked me for it."

Hermione rolled her eyes and leaned over to blow out the flame before stealing the match and matchbox. She tossed it aside, grabbed the clove out of the pan, pushed him away from the stove, and began to separate the clove on the chopping board. Fred grinned, and she steadfastly ignored it.

"Or are you referring to your incessant need to play off current events like it's just part of the season?" asked Hermione, shooting him a raised eyebrow as she minced the garlic.

Fred's grin turned cheeky. "How about we start at the beginning, so I can keep showing up with apology dinners"

"We are _not_ making a habit of— _wait_." Hermione froze and glowered. "What do you mean 'beginning?'"

"Like," began Fred, drawing out the word as he pushed an onion her way, "when we set a Humidity Charm on your hair so that every time you tried to pat it down, it got poofier…?"

Hermione's jaw dropped. Fred snatched the knife from her hand.

"I really shouldn't arm you and then make comments like those," he muttered.

Hermione grabbed the box of lasagna noodles and hit him over the head with it. "That—was—my—first—year!"

"Ow! I'm sorry!" He yanked the now-deformed box out of her hand. "Hence the dinner! What better way to apologize than to feed our friendship, right? Literally?"

Hermione took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, staring at the tiny pieces of garlic on her chopping board. The flash of anger faded into weariness. "Are you trying to torture me? Serve me comeuppance for being a killjoy in school?"

Fred gingerly handed the knife back to her. "No, starshine. I'm trying to make amends. If it just so happens that it's a little bittersweet, call it flavoring for excitement." He slung his arm around her shoulders and squeezed. Hermione flinched a bit at the whiff of gunpowder clinging to his gray shirt. "Now, you help me finish dinner—"

" _I_ will finish dinner with you disrupting me any way you can."

" _We'll_ finish dinner, eat, chat about our day, exchange funny anecdotes, and I leave you with a full tummy and a quiet night, all right?" He patted her hair and shoved her back in front of the chopping board.

Hermione cleared her throat and turned back to the chopping board and let the subject fall into silence. Fred seemed content to follow suit, though he seemed infinitely more comfortable with the ambience of their meal preparation. Despite being almost entirely incompetent in a Muggle kitchen, Fred was a decent enough assistant as long as she put him on simple tasks that in no way involved any form of heat.

For the most part, Fred upheld his statement of finishing dinner, eating, making relatively innocuous small-talk that avoided any important subjects, and left her with a full stomach, cleared allergies, and a surprisingly clean kitchen, ending the night on a quiet note. So when Fred left her flat to return to his own, Hermione gave him a warm hug and a playful punch on the shoulder instead of throwing him out.

The flowers he'd brought were truly quite beautiful and allergy-free. Instead of singing, they hummed an old Sinatra classic, the melody helping her fall asleep.

And then she woke up to the loud, booming notes of "Never Gonna Give You Up," a very verdant pallor to her skin, and a note from Fred and George's owl saying, _"Since your biology deprives you of ever having a green thumb, I thought I'd give you a lifetime's experience in one go so you don't feel left out."_

Hermione really should've known. He said she'd have a nice night. He never said a thing about the morning.

* * *

Fred had woken up to a bright, new day. Granted, it was a bit rainy and forecasted only to get even more rainy, but there would be no raining on his day.

Even when his and George's security wards were utterly _demolished_ in less than two minutes and the double doors to the joke shop practically exploded open, and Hermione stormed in. In fact, Fred's day got even brighter.

Contrary to what he'd expected, Hermione was just as immaculately dressed as ever—in her pretty emerald-colored blouse and black skirt under her open robes, a neat braid over her shoulder. The only thing out of character was her distinctly green pallor and the complete rage oozing even from the deep creases of her frown.

Fred _really_ did try his best not to laugh.

"Good morning, Granger! Did you wake up on the right side of the bed? With sunshine and singing—"

"Where is the antidote, Fred?" asked Hermione, cool and calm and collected and clearly on the verge of throwing a bevy of mildly harmful spells at him.

"Antidote to what, darling?" asked Fred, continuing to feed each Pygmy Puff by hand. "You're still as beautiful as ever—though a tad off-color, to be honest."

"Fred," growled Hermione, her tight fists on her hips.

He grinned and released the blue Pygmy Puff and picked up a pink one. "Hermy."

Hermione, seemingly possessed by a more malevolent spirit, picked up one of the Nosebleed Nougats and hurled it at him. It would've nailed him right in the nose if he hadn't jumped to the side. It clipped his ear and harmlessly bounced off a nearby cage.

"Fan _tastic_ arm, Granger!" he howled triumphantly, releasing the shocked Puff in his hand back to the nest. "Always knew you'd make a decent athlete, given the right incentives. And it's even nicer to see you find _me_ to be your motivation."

Hermione's lips thinned into near-disappearance.

"The _antidote_ , Weasley," said Hermione through her teeth. "Now."

"Oh, Granger, my Granger," said Fred, slinging his arm around her shoulders. "Didn't you get the delivery this morning?"

She smacked away his arm. "Do you mean your bloody stupid flowers—"

"No, not the flowers," said Fred. "George brought it to Flourish and Blotts."

"I Apparated straight here because I'm just a _tad_ unpresentable right now!" she barked. "Reverse the spell, Fred!"

"Hermione, Hermione, Hermione—when did you break protocol to make pit stops before you were meant to report for duty?" he cried dramatically, wrapping his arm around her again to steer her out the door. "Oh, _Hermione_ —"

She slipped out from under him again. "Would you stop _yowling_ —"

Fred danced around her to grab her again.

" _Hermione!"_ cried Fred grandly, throwing out his free arm to the rest of Diagon Alley as if summoning them to watch the spectacle he was about to make.

"Fred, for Merlin's sake, why are you _tormenting me like this_?" hissed Hermione, giving up the struggle to slip out of his grip. "Are we even _friends_ at this point?"

Fred stopped in the middle of the street and clutched his chest. He could tell Hermione was expecting what he was about to do next, bracing herself for the fallout. He obviously didn't want to let her down.

" _Doubt thou the stars are fire,"_ he announced to the (fortunately for Hermione's sake) empty street. _"Doubt that the sun doth move!"_

Hermione hit him in the arm and dodged his grip once more, storming down the street ahead of him as he continued his Shakespearean howling.

" _Doubt truth to be a liar—"_

"You're absolutely ridiculous."

" _But never doubt I love_ being your friend and being friends often entails dealing with my hijinks, Hermione!" called Fred as Hermione neared the entrance to Flourish and Blotts. "The moment George and I don't prank you or play around with you is the moment when we should reevaluate where our friendship stands, eh?"

Fred jogged to catch up with her as she burst into her shop.

Just in time for—

"Hark, fair maiden!" boomed George as Hermione hesitated at the doorway, assaulted by his greeting.

"Oi, mate," called Noah, who sat in the café area, nursing a cup of tea and sporting an expression better suited for the unconscious. The box of pastries George had brought over sat open and waiting in front of him. "I told you this really isn't the time."

"O Hermione, Hermione, wherefore art thou, Hermione?" howled George as Fred sat down on the chair opposite Noah's and turned the box to himself. He offered a cheese danish to the younger man and took a scone for himself. "Deny thy anger and refuse thy sense of decorum!"

" _George,"_ growled Hermione.

"Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be—"

"A _fool_?" asked Hermione, glaring at the other Weasley twin.

George paused his dramatics and set his hands on his hips. "Well, honestly, I'd be a fool regardless, if only because I'd be a fool _in love_."

Hermione threw her hands up and stormed off.

"Honestly, you two," said Rachel, coming out from behind the main counter. "Today really isn't the day for your antics. Haven't you read the _Prophet_?"

"What're they saying this time?" asked George, joining Fred and Noah at their little table.

Noah pushed the newspaper to Fred as he promptly stuffed the danish into his open, yawning mouth.

Rachel caught the sight as she passed by. "Efficiency at its best," she said blandly.

"You love me," said Noah, around a mouthful of the confection.

"I _loathe_ you," she said. "Get it right."

The twins scanned the newspaper. Emblazoned on the front page was the headline, "Match Books Set Fire to Marriages." George sighed and shook his head as Fred winced.

"This has really a fire under those pun-lovers," muttered Fred.

 _Pop!_

Fred and George turned to look at Noah. He'd gone from wizard robes to a red calico dress, white embroidered apron, and a black and white lace bonnet, still clutching his mug and the danish.

Hermione reappeared with a stack of books about appearance-changing potions. She spotted Noah and then glowered at the twins. "Again?"

"Just the one," said Fred.

"Wanted to try it out on Noah here," said George. "It's not as severe a transformation as the bear claws or the madeleines."

"Took _ages_ for us to repair all of Fleur's torn things. French silks are _not_ easy to mend, even magically," groused Fred, studying Noah's new, traditional Danish outfit.

"Ginny's French accent was unbearable," added George. "Apparently the spell only forced a French accent on people. It didn't guarantee _authenticity_."

"I'm not in the mood for this," grumbled Hermione as she stomped away again.

"Really, though, love," called Fred, picking up the paper and heading up the stairs. "We should've seen this coming. When presented with the very idea of soul mates being one's grasp, people would naturally be a bit curious and want to explore that whimsical avenue."

"Oh, _Merlin_ ," sighed Rachel just as the explosion hit.

"Why must you continually brush this off?!" screeched Hermione. "Do you really not have any idea the gravity of the situation?!"

"I _have_ heard those Match Books were damn heavy," said George. "S'pose they've got to be if they list down every bloody name in the community."

"Long-standing relationships and even marriages," continued Hermione, ignoring the other Weasley as she stomped to a nearby empty table and began setting the books down, "are being put _on hold_ for people to experiment, as if this is a free pass for spouses to cheat on each other!"

Fred blinked at the curly-haired brunette over the top of the paper, eyebrows high as she searched the books for a way to reverse her green thumbs, cheeks, and everything else.

"—and where will society be then? We can't even anticipate the consequences of this kind of phenomenon—"

"Gift horses' mouths," said Fred. "You're familiar with them, no?"

Hermione whirled around, eyes flashing. "And you must know about Trojans and horses, don't you?!"

Fred smirked and nodded, turning back to his newspaper. "Touché."

Hermione braced her hands on the table. "Fred, please, I'm—I don't want to fight with you today."

Fred lowered the paper and folded it back up before tossing it at George. "For the record, Granger, I'm not here to fight or antagonize you—"

She shot him a pointed look.

He shrugged. "—beyond what you could stomach and dish back. George and I wanted to bring you and your team some sweets to perk you up and follow up after our fun bonding dinner last night."

Hermione picked up a book and whacked his arm with it. "You wanted to see how angry I was when I woke up to that loathsome flower's song, to your ridiculous pun and skin-coloring charm, _and_ you wanted to terrorize my employees."

"In his defense, this is really good," said Noah, who was still munching away, unfazed by his new attire. He motioned to Rachel, who'd taken Fred's seat as she ate a muffin. "D'you mind straightening my bonnet? I don't want to stain the lace."

Rachel gamely acquiesced despite her rolling eyes, even going so far as to tighten the ribbon under his chin.

"Cheers, love," said Noah, winking and putting his stocking-and-buckled-shoe-clad feet up on an empty chair.

"Look, whatever your ridiculous reasons for pranking me and showing your affections in the most annoying ways possible, I'm too busy to deal with your shenanigans," said Hermione, turning back to her books, her back to Fred again.

"I know, I know," sighed Fred, his tone pained and his hand over his heart. "I'm such a distraction for you." Hermione stiffened as Fred gently tugged on the end of her braid. "You need to learn some relaxation techniques, love."

"Fred—"

"You're stressed, and this Match Book business grates on every fiber of your morality, but you need to take a few deep breaths—"

"I'm already breath—"

"No, you're huffing and puffing yourself into a full-scale fit or a full-scale meltdown. Stop it." He set his hands on her shoulders. "I want you to take five seconds to breathe in completely from your nose—fill up those lungs and that stomach—and then take ten seconds to let it all out from your mouth."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him instead, but he unflinchingly met it with a smile. She eventually obeyed.

"Good girl," he said, massaging her shoulders. "Again. And again. One more time for me, love."

"I'm getting lightheaded," she muttered, swaying a bit, but he held her steady.

"But do you feel better?"

She sighed. "I suppose."

Fred rolled his eyes and then fixed them back on her face, even lowering his own to better grab her attention. "Oi, is this ancient magic shite making you wish you'd done something other than own this bookworm haven?"

"No," she muttered, frowning.

"Is it making you wish all this ancient magic shite making you rethink your decision to turn down the Department of Mysteries?"

"No," she answered firmly, chin rising.

Fred grinned and gave her a little shake that made her shimmy. "Now, I'll ask one more time—are you feeling better?"

She shrugged.

"Or are you feeling a bit…green around the gills?"

Hermione glowered at him, and Fred just laughed.

"Here," he said, reaching back to the little container that'd been tucked towards the back of the pastry box with a small wooden spoon attached.

"Fred—"

"Relax. It's tiramisu again, but with the antidote mixed in. Apparently the cream helps mask the atrocious taste," chortled Fred, popping open the container and spooning out a bite.

"Oh, yes, it'll get rid of the green, but then it'll give me horns or some such," grumbled Hermione.

"I would never do such a thing," he said, wiggling the spoon in front of her face. "You've already got claws. Why would I give you more pointy things to stab me with?"

Hermione snatched the spoon out of his hands and ate the small bite. She closed her eyes, grimaced, and then shivered. The green faded until she was back to normal.

Fred grinned and handed her the container for her to finish.

"Don't you two idiots have your own shop to tend to?" asked Hermione, accepting the container as Fred picked up the empty box and began to systematically fold it down.

Fred winked. "Why tend to the shop when we have a shop _keeper_ to tend to?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and pulled out her wand to send the books back to their rightful places. "I don't know why you insist on strengthening our friendship, Fred. I think we get along best when we're in each other's periphery."

" _Periphery?!"_ he spluttered, following her as she headed up the stairs. He hopped onto the railing and began to magically slide up it alongside Hermione. "And if I don't want to be on the periphery, woman? I want to be center-stage."

"Get off," she scolded, whacking his leg. "You're going to break the railing."

"You're not even worried about me breaking my neck—you're worried about your banister!" cried Fred.

"You don't care enough about your own neck to keep from doing reckless things, so why should I put the effort?"

"Why must you wound me so, sugar pie?"

"Because you're a pain in my neck, Fred Weasley! Now stop your crusade to annoy me and get out of my shop!"

"Keep breaking my heart, Hermione, and I'm going to have to sing," he said seriously, hopping off the banister once he reached the end.

Hermione froze mid-step, her face falling. "Fred, don't."

"I just…wanna tell you how I'm feeling," he said earnestly, his hand over this heart.

"Fred—"

He shook his head. "Gotta make you… _understand_."

Hermione took a deep, steadying breath.

" _Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you…"_

Noah turned to George. "Do I get to keep this clothes?"

"They'll fade in another hour. Sorry, mate."

"Damn."

Rachel watched her coworker adjust his bonnet and smooth down his skirt, shaking her head.

 _Pop!_

Hermione had finished the container of tiramisu, and with her last swallow, her pretty blouse and skirt transformed into a high collared dress, full skirt, complete with beard embroidery, straight out of a portrait of Catherine de Medici.

" _FRED!"_


	7. Chapter 7

**Seven**

* * *

Julianne hadn't been in England long, six months really. After the news of Voldemort's fall and her uncles' excuses had run out, she packed and shrunk her belongings, tucked her mum's picture in the breast pocket of her coat, and readied the title for an old London townhouse. She'd found the property, dropped off her things, and immediately made for Diagon Alley, which was in the midst of a cacophonous celebration, one she suspected had been ongoing since the end of the war. Swept up in the rambunctious crowd that nearly trampled her, two pairs of hands unceremoniously "rescued" her by hauling her straight into the eye of the storm.

Fred and George Weasley had taken it upon themselves to instigate a party in the middle of the shopping area any time they felt the people were muddling back into the melancholy of mourning and rebuilding. When Julianne stood in the middle of that party—a double shot of Firewhiskey in her right hand and a Cauldron cake in the other, grinning confusedly at Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and his six siblings just outside of a garishly colored joke shop—she reckoned the cosmos did her a solid and dropped her in the hands of the right people. The parties had tapered off when the Minister announced the Anniversary Festival two months before the one year mark, but Julianne still found herself caught up in the twins' shenanigans on a regular basis.

"Erm, a little help, please?"

Verity had drafted Julianne's help behind the registers to hack down the long queues while Fred and George only made their jobs that much more difficult by practically coercing more customers to buying much more than necessary. Verity had been the first to look up at the confused plea for help, and her yelp caught the other three's attention.

"I may have accidentally adopted five cats…?"

"What?!" chorused three voices in perfect choral union of tenor, baritone, and genuine shock.

"Perfect tone, Freddie!" cheered George, skipping to the registers and holding his hand up for a high-five, which Fred immediately answered.

"We've gotten so much better," laughed Fred.

"And somehow still _worse_ ," muttered Verity, rolling her eyes.

Fred winked at Julianne, who wasn't nearly as amused. If she had to clean up cat poop, she'd transport it directly to the twins' beds.

Julianne rested her forearm on top of the registers and shot the young mother and her daughter an apologetic look. "How can you accidentally adopt—Ron, are you planning on _keeping_ those cats?"

"Well, at the rate they're digging their bloody claws into me, it looks like that'll be my outcome!" cried Ron, clearly aggrieved with one cat showing him some margin of affection, let alone _five_. "I was just walking down the street, and all of a sudden, these little blighters latched onto me."

He looking quite fearful, standing in the middle of the everyday calamity, effectively decorated in cats. The other customers gave him a wide berth, but several children were ready to rush forward and pet the animals. A ginger tom draped itself across his shoulders, nuzzling his ear, while a golden queen had latched herself against his chest so securely that the arm he held her with was nearly useless. A speckled ginger she-cat with white paws and a dark tabby tom were wrapped around both his ankles. The centerpiece was the blue-grey kitten contentedly snuggled in his front trouser pocket, its two front paws framing its fuzzy little face.

"I want to make a very, very bad joke right now," said Fred, biting his lip.

"I will punch you very, very hard," countered Julianne, subtly pointing at the little six year old in her queue. She turned back to Ron. "Did you suddenly develop some sort of feline affinity?"

"When you say 'affinity,' do you mean as a scratching post?" asked Fred, snickering.

"If you did, that'd be a resounding yes," said George. "He's got permanent stripes thanks to Hermione's—"

The loud foghorn blared, the "temporary replacement" for the chimes above the door, drowning out George's last few words. Hermione herself strolled through the door, Harry on her heels with his hands in his pockets.

"Hermione's _what_?" the curly-haired witch asked, narrowing her eyes at both the twins for good measure.

"Hermione's majestic familiar, of course, a god in disguise, as he is loathe to grace us with his true form," said Fred, loping over to the witch and slinging his arm around her shoulders. "That's why Crooksie always looks so disdainfully at us all, because he's trapped in such a mundane manifestation. Tell me I'm right, Granger."

"You're still insulting my cat."

"He's not your possession, Hermione. He's a god in his most innocuous form to keep from melting your skin off with his glory."

"You're still insulting my cat, and I'm fairly sure making a sacrilegious statement—"

"Oi!" barked Ron, his face red. "Help, please?!"

Hermione ducked out from under Fred's arm to try and alleviate Ron's load, but none of the cats seemed at all inclined to disengage. She tried to pull each one off, causing quite an even bigger spectacle as the cats hissed and yowled at her in protest, Julianne and Verity trying to stifle their laughter as they continued ringing up customers. A nudge at Julianne's elbow signaled her to Harry's presence at the register beside her, further decongesting the heavy pre-closing flow.

"How's she doing?" asked Julianne, keeping her voice along the volume of the shop din. The boys in front of her hardly needed to know their business, not that it mattered much since they only seemed to be there for her, judging by the random collection of purchases—a harried Pygmy Puff, the Boxing Telescope, a Thestral Thrasher, and assortment of WonderWitch products.

Harry glanced at her as he handed the star-struck, short-haired woman in front of him her change. "It's not as bad as when this all hit, but anything can still set her off."

"Fred, stop antagonizing them!" snapped Hermione as Fred tugged on the ginger tom's tail to make him crawl all over Ron's head.

"Fred doesn't help much," added Harry blandly.

"Fair warning, he's planning something," said Julianne, sighing. "He's trying to prove a fairly understandable point, but Fred's knack for trying to think outside of the box means his methods are going to make his point just a little sharper than necessary."

"He shouldn't be poking at her temper like he does, point or not," said Harry, clearing his throat and frowning, making the two girls buying Pygmy Puffs shrink back. He shot them an apologetic look. "This match business has been nothing but a pain."

"I think it's terribly romantic," said the brunette girl with flower barrettes on either side of her head, her eyes gleaming excitedly. "It makes the dating pool that much easier."

She hardly looked thirteen; dating pools or even half-filled tubs should hardly be her problem.

"I can't wait 'til I get my own tattoo," said the blonde girl with a short ponytail and rosy cheeks. "Do you think it'll be something we'll all get down the road?"

"What about you, Miss Adoria? Is your match a good one? Did you know him from before or have you even met him?" asked Flower Barrettes. These girls were shameless. "I hope you'll have a romance as beautiful as the one from your book."

Harry pulled out his wand to wrap the girls' purchases and gather up their change to get them out of his queue faster. Julianne hoped her glare spurred him to go faster.

A loudly clearing throat pulled Harry and Julianne's gazes to the left, where Verity stood behind a queue-less register, as it seemed all her customers moved to Julianne and Harry's, the budding Muggleborn author and the Savior of the Wizarding World. Looking beleaguered but unmistakably relieved to no longer be doing math, Verity stood between the two of them and took up wrapping the customer's purchases.

"Ron, why do you smell like catnip?"

Julianne looked up at the twins—Fred innocently observing Ron and Hermione and George waving his wand to change the "open" sign to "closed."

Ron frowned and tried to sniff at himself, while Hermione stepped back, her hands on her hips. "Is that what the smell is? George said—" His confusion evaporated into anger. "George, you said it was just the new soap!"

Fred and George burst out laughing, and even Verity snorted. Julianne only sighed when she caught Harry's grin too.

"I am not wandering into Muggle London with you attracting every stray in the city," said Hermione, waving her wand and casting an air freshening charm on Ron. She then began to coax the cats off Ron, who stiffened as the cats put up a little bit more of a fight before relinquishing their holds.

"Oh, come on, Hermione," said Fred, petting the dark tabby tom who'd leapt into his arms after Hermione had dislodged him from Ron's ankle. "It'd be the only positive attention Ron could get with his mouth open or closed."

"You tried so hard not to make the joke, I can tell," laughed Julianne.

Hermione rolled her eyes and shot Julianne a playful withering glare. "Yes, yes, you debased lunatics. Now, I want a pleasant night out with my friends, and I'd rather not have any of them pussyfooting around. If Ron wants to pick up any girl, then he'll need to make his own mistakes and learn his own lessons."

Fred looked utterly star-struck, George swooned, and even Verity looked impressed.

"That's it, Hermione," chuckled Harry, ringing up the last customer. "You've got Fred's utter devotion."

"Yes, insult my inability to speak to women properly, catch onto one of Fred's dirty jokes, and make a pun all in one go," groused Ron, still trying to extract the tiny kitten from his pocket but only managing to make it purr even louder.

"Hermione, all your drinks are on me tonight," stated Fred, waving out the last customer as George shut the door behind him.

Hermione sniffed. "Literally or figuratively?"

Fred blinked and looked around, a bit lost for a few seconds.

"All right, mates, let's get going," chuckled Julianne, stepping out from behind the registers and nearly tripping over the white-pawed she-cat. "It looks like Fred and Ron need a bit of alcohol in their system some five minutes ago."

* * *

Draco took another swig of the whiskey whose name he could no longer remember…or perhaps he'd never learned it to begin with? Frankly, he'd been at that Muggle pub long enough to forgot when he even arrived, let along what he was drinking.

Yes, _Muggle pub_. Wizarding pubs didn't mind serving him too much; the other imbibing patrons weren't quite so welcoming, however. Unsurprising, but still an inconvenience, as he preferred avoiding any of his father's habits—which was drinking, brooding alone, at home. He could only amend one out of three. At least Muggle bartenders' voices eventually faded into white noise as they rattled off about something incomprehensible.

The pub hadn't been far from the Leaky Cauldron, and after his workday, any port in a storm… However, when he heard the boisterous group come flooding in through the doors, he rethought his ideas for ports and hoped he had enough of his faculties to sneak out.

As he downed the rest of his tumbler and threw down a few Muggle notes, he heard the unmistakable, booming voices of the twin wretches, midway through some sort of sea shanty that many of the Muggles eagerly joined. Draco slid off his barstool, keeping his head low and collar high.

" _Lock me up in me oilskins and jumper, no more on the docks I'll be seen!"_ yowled the crowd, the twins' voices still ringing higher than the others.

His head swam, as he realized exactly how much he'd already had to drink. A vague, un-Slytherin-like _whoops_ slid across his mind. Still, he attempted to sidle along the edge of the bulk of the pub patrons, trying not to jostle any arms that held their pints high in song.

" _Just tell me old shipmates, I'm taking a trip, mates. I'll see you someday in Fiddler's Green!"_

He skirted around the shorter edge of the pub. His eyes were fixed on the floor, only using his instincts and peripheral vision—muddy as both were in his current state—to dodge the rhythmically swinging arms.

" _Oh, and when you are docked and the long trip is through, there's pubs and there's clubs and there's lassies there too!"_ The crowd whooped, and Draco nearly fell onto one knee as the aforementioned arms swung. _"Where the girls are all pretty and the beer is all free—"_

"Oi, not tonight!" bellowed one of the bartenders, earning a gale of laughter.

"— _and there's bottles of rum growin' off every tree!"_

He was almost to the door when he was blocked by a pair of denim-clad legs and black trainers. When he tried to sidestep, the legs stepped right along with him.

And then he looked up with a scowl that faded into what he hoped wasn't obvious despair. "Bugger me."

"Heavens above, Draco, I know we're matched, but you've still got to buy me dinner first."

"Ferret!" barked another painfully familiar Weasley voice—one he'd often heard trying to disparage him—and Draco turned to see a red-faced Ron Weasley storming over. Instead of slugging him in the face, however, Weasley's wiry, apelike arm went 'round his shoulders and the redhead's Firewhiskey breath went in his face.

Draco glowered, trying to lean away from his former classmate. "What in the seven hells—"

"Ron's personality and alcohol intake is a new type of magic," said Adoria, petting something gold and furry tucked into Weasley's other arm. Her sudden, close proximity meant Draco caught the red in her cheeks and the slight sway in her movements. "Apple cider starts the bawling, vodka starts the brawling, and tequila starts the public nudity."

"Firewhiskey, vanilla vodka, cinnamon, and apple juice apparently starts the forgiveness and clinging," said Potter, coming up on Draco's other side and making him cringe and wish he could sink into the floorboards to avoid the group that had congregated around him.

"Tastes like apple pie, ferret, you should try it," said Weasley, blowing more of his breath in Draco's face, enough for him to smell the hints of vanilla and apples amidst the stench.

He leaned even further away, but Weasel's hold was strong and Draco was honestly not the most capable drunk. He was in no state to be caught up in a battalion of Gryffindors.

"Good for you, Weasel, now unhand me. I've somewhere else to be."

"At home, alone, brooding?" asked the female Weasley, her brown eyes equally glazed as she leaned against Potter. Draco hoped she wasn't a perceptive drunk because the bloody woman was entirely too spot-on.

"That's unacceptable," said the two-eared Weasley twin, hobbling over as he supported an utterly sloshed granger, judging by the messy bun on the top of her head, her red cheeks, and the excited grin she gave him. "You can brood here with us."

"Oi, when did we decide to include the ferret?" asked the Weasel, hugging Draco even closer and making him seriously consider assault.

"Since you haven't let go of him, idiot," said the one-eared twin, smacking his brother upside the head.

"Shut up, everyone," snapped Granger, waving her arm dramatically. "Malfoy is a better option than the serial killer. Call it a night for inter-house unity!"

"Which one was the serial killer?" asked the two-eared twin.

"Are you all inebriated?" grumbled Draco, looking from face to face and not seeing as much animosity—and therefore sobriety—as expected.

So he was surrounded by a battalion of _drunk_ Gryffindors and a foreigner who was still standing incredibly close to him, petting the fluffy, golden thing, and smelling of orange blossoms, mint, and vanilla. The fluffy thing suddenly lifted its head and fixed Draco with an amber-eyed stare before climbing over the Weasel and settling right on Draco's shirt, digging its claws and forcing Draco to hold onto the clearly pregnant feline before its claws scored down his chest and drew blood.

"The lion has decided!" roared the female Weasley, her fist in the air. "The snake stays!"

The pub roared its oblivious but enthusiastic approval.

"The snake wants to leave," hissed Draco, turning to his last resort for any semblance of sanity in the group: Potter, who still stood to his right, looking thoroughly entertained.

"Get over yourself, ferret," said the Weasel, who was now sagged against Draco's side so that he had to brace his feet to hold both the damned cat and the Weasel. "This is the friendliest attention you've ever gotten in your life—friendly being that we're not manipulating a damn thing out of you."

"Speak for yourself, Ronniekins," said the two-eared twin.

"We want to see what kind of drunk he is," finished the one-eared twin. "Tell us, Malfoy, are you a belligerent, musical, weepy, or affectionate drunk? Or perhaps you're a chatty, dramatic, or horn—"

"How about we just get him drunk and see where it goes?" offered Granger impatiently.

"The job looks mostly done anyway," said Adoria, leaning into his face and getting a good look at his eyes. Either she was really that bloody attractive or he was really that bloody sloshed.

Meanwhile, Granger had started a rambling tangent as the two-eared twin shifted her in his arms so that she could gesture properly without whacking him in the face. "All of the Weasleys have been trying to recruit others to join us all night, and Harry, Jules, and I—"

"Mostly just me," said Potter.

"—managed to dissuade them from latching onto complete strangers or downright shady-looking folk, but you're the first and only familiar face, and a magical one at that, so you're the only acceptable candidate at this point. It's a lost cause. Besides, you're not that bad—a decently helpful research—"

Draco glowered. "Granger, shut up."

She clapped her hand over her mouth and then giggled. As soon as she registered the sound she made, she looked aghast, but then waved it off and threw her arm around the two-eared twin's shoulders. "Welcome to Gred and Forge's Friday Night Pub Crawl!"

"A round of shots on me!" cheered the Weasel, right in Draco's ear.

He cringed, and wearily rode the tide of Gryffindors back to the bar, the bloody cat purring so hard it was vibrating in his arms.

"So you really know how to handle pussy, eh?"

"Fred, for Merlin's sake!" shrieked Granger.

"Oh, let him be. He's been itching to drop that line ever since Ron showed up with all the cats," laughed Adoria, a surprisingly deep sound that warmed his chest.

Someone shoved him onto a stool sandwiched firmly between the Weasel and Adoria, and he swore to himself that as soon as he could find an opening, he'd make a break for it. If the cat didn't let go—which it didn't seem inclined to do in the least—then it would bloody go home with him then.

"So how was work?"

Draco was flabbergasted. He turned to look at the woman, and she laughed at whatever his expression was—he couldn't tell anymore; his face felt numb. He took the shot the bartender slid in front of him and ignored the question. Instead of asking why he was in a Muggle pub, of all places, she asked about his work.

"He works at St. Mungo's!" hollered Granger down the bar, where she sat, seemingly comfortable with having the two-eared twin hanging off her shoulders like a cloak. "He's a junior Healer already—the youngest in two centuries because he sped through training at the top of his class!"

Draco scowled. More like he sped through training because his bloody instructors didn't like him but couldn't deny his bloody talent so they shoved him onto the fast track to get him out of their hair as quickly as possible.

"You sound like a proud mother," said the Weasel right before he threw back his second shot—where he got that, Draco couldn't fathom since they were all still on their first.

"Well, now I know what you'll sound like when our children succeed," said the two-eared twin, snuggling closer to Granger's back.

"Fred, you imbecile!" barked Granger, whacking him with her pocketbook and nearly hitting herself as well.

Adoria laughed again, and Draco's eye twitched. She signaled the bartender with four fingers before turning back to Draco. "So, work? Did you have any difficult patients?"

"Just his own," said Weasel, chortling to himself.

"I would buy you a new sense of humor if I could, Weasel," said Draco blandly.

Adoria laughed again, throwing her head back. Draco didn't watch the way her shoulder length hair brushed her collarbone. Instead, he fixed his glare on the row of bottles on the mirrored shelves. The bartender returned with four shots, and he set them down in front of Adoria, who pushed two in front of Draco.

"Bottoms up, mate," she said, nudging the two glasses in front of him. "May as well alleviate some of your suffering."

"You could just leave me alone," he pointed out, sneering at the liquor.

"You keep your pale, pointy arse on that stool, Malfoy!" barked Granger's human cloak.

"Be a good pariah and take your shots," added the one-eared twin.

If Draco scowled any harder, he would certainly look constipated.

The orange blossoms, mint, and vanilla grew stronger, and the air on his right grew warmer. He refused to look at her.

"Take the shots, and we can go," said Adoria under her breath. "I need to put this fur ball to bed before it takes a wee in my pocket anyway."

At that, Draco had to look at her, and when he did, he saw the snoozing little blue-gray kitten sitting in her coat pocket and the small smile on her face.

"You'll pretend to be nauseous—that's the only thing that'll have them ushering you out the door. All of us can hold our liquor mostly because none of us even like smelling vomit, what the more actually doing it, you know?" she continued, picking up her shot glass and holding it up to him to toast. "So just finish these two and I'll pretend to escort you home, and we'll go our separate ways."

"How about I simply leave?" posited Draco tiredly as the twins headed up another sea shanty.

" _Oh, we'd be all right if the wind was in our sails, and we'd be all right if the wind was in our sails!"_

"They'd only follow you all the way to wherever it is you live," said Adoria, scooting her stool even closer so she could be heard over the admittedly decent-sounding crowd harmonizing around the shanty. "They're a persistent bunch."

" _We'd be all right if the wind was in our sails, and we'll all hang on behind!"_

Draco sighed. The only reason he was going to do this was because he was drunk off his arse already, and he was not looking forward to going home to an empty flat. He picked up his shot and threw it back, ignoring her offer of a toast.

" _And we'll roll the old chariot along!"_

She chuckled and tossed back her own, and then both of them picked up the second and threw it back as well. Weasel cheered, and Draco nearly fell off his stool as he swayed heavily.

" _We'll roll the old chariot along!"_

Adoria slid off her stool and patted Potter on the back, whispering in his ear and gesturing to Draco sympathetically. Even in his drunkenness, he could tell Potter didn't believe much of what she was saying, but he nodded anyway.

" _We'll roll the old chariot along!"_

Adoria patted him on the shoulder, keeping her hand in place to steady him as he did his best not to stumble. He handed the cat over to Potter like a baby and followed Adoria as she led the way out the pub. He'd blame it on his drunkenness again that when she took his hand so as to not lose him in the crowd, he held on just as tightly.

" _We'll all hang on behind!"_


	8. Chapter 8

**Well, ladies and gents, now is when the "M" rating kicks in.**

* * *

 **Eight**

* * *

Julianne knew the moment when Draco woke up early the next morning. She could feel the waves of self-loathing practically soaking into her sheets. The faint lights of morning hadn't breached the horizon just yet, and Draco hadn't quite managed to peel his body away from hers.

Draco Malfoy was a horny drunk. Who would've known? She'd pegged him as a brooding or aggressive drunk—an exacerbated level of of his default setting. Surprisingly, he'd clung to her gently, but firmly, as she led the way out of the pub, and he'd softly admitted that he couldn't remember his way back to his apartment without Apparating.

So she took him back to her townhouse with hardly a moment's deliberation. It was mostly because she really _did_ need to drop off the kitten.

He wasn't all bad, clearly, and judging from the lack of hostility the Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione had shown him, she reckoned he wasn't quite as bad as he'd once been—which is likely something all of them could've said. Malfoy was harmless.

She hauled him into her kitchen to dose him with Sober-Up potion, however, because harmless or not, he needed to go home. The thought had been reaffirmed when she'd reached into her cabinet for the potion bottle, and he sidled up to her with a long-suffering sigh and pressed his chest against her shoulder, dipping his head and setting her nerves alight.

"When I was small, my mother used to have potpourri that smelled like you," he'd muttered drowsily as her fingers fumbled for the bottle, her fingertips skimming the side of the glass and pushing it further away. "Like orange blossoms, mint, and vanilla. And cinnamon?"

Julianne cleared her throat to dispel the fluttering in her stomach and to try and stabilize her eyeballs, which had seemed to swirl unsteadily in their sockets. "Fairly sure that was the shot you had."

"Yeah, yeah, you're right." Draco had inhaled deeply, and it startled her into jumping high enough for her to grab the potion bottle with three fingers and bring it down.

Unfortunately, there'd only been enough for a dose and a half. She sighed then and took the half, thankful she didn't get proper hangovers anyway—only incredible bouts of fatigue that kept her in bed for a good sixteen hours or so. Draco had looked like he needed it more. So she shoved the remaining potion into his hands and stepped back.

"Drink it," she ordered.

He frowned at the opened bottle for a second, and in that same second, Julianne wondered if he'd complain about sharing mouth space with a Muggleborn. But then his drooped grey eyes rose to meet her own again.

"This isn't enough of a dose for me," he said, and then he downed the potion bottle, still holding her gaze. The heavy glaze of drunkenness lifted only slightly, but then the grey darkened into thunderclouds. "I tried to eat that potpourri, you know? But it tasted ghastly."

She realized, then, the extent of his drinking habits and his high tolerance for the potion. And then she remembered she wasn't exactly fully sober herself either.

"I'm certain _you'll_ taste much better."

She determined at that point to rework her reflexive responses because she'd shifted in her denims and croaked out, "Fuck me." As more of a rhetorical obscenity, of course, not an actual command.

He didn't seem to see it that way, though, judging by the way his eyebrows slowly rose along with the corners of his lips and said, "All right then."

And he promptly carried out his adult attempt at tasting something he'd thought smelled good. Her potion had brought her from drunk to tipsy and taken him from the edge of black-out inebriation to drunk-enough-to-do-this-but-sober-enough-to-still-do-it-magnificently.

Hence their current position on her bed, spooned together in the early morning darkness.

Therein lay surprise number two about Draco Malfoy: He snuggled quite a lot. He seemed to enjoy the more intimate positions—holding her against his chest while she rocked on his lap, pressing tightly against her back with his lips all over her neck and shoulders as he slid behind her, his hands bloody _everywhere._

Julianne couldn't bring herself to join in his bout of self-loathing, however. She could hardly regret something that didn't impact her life in great magnitudes or hadn't felt insanely good. She even wondered if he could make her lose her mind again when she was fully sober.

As it stood, she still felt a little tipsy. She almost never woke up this early after a night of excessive drinking. She wasn't quite sure what had woken her up, but it must've been some innate awareness that Draco himself had awoken as well. He took a deep breath, chest against her back, his fingers twitching against her naked hip. In a moment she blamed on the lack of full sobriety and lucidity, she sighed and scooted back against him, rubbing her bum against his half-mast erection.

He hissed, his breath hot against her shoulder, and his fingers dug into her hip, right on the joint, making her repeat her actions involuntarily. Self-loathing or not, his hips pushed forward, grinding against her in a slow rhythm. His breathing hitched. She felt his hands slide downward from her hip to her soaking quim, and he groaned, the sound going through his body and into hers. His finger dipped into her channel gently, testing her wetness. She lifted her leg and pushed back against him again, her hand coming to rest on top of his, carding their fingers together.

With a deep, trembling sigh and a whispered Contraceptive Charm, Draco pulled back, changed his angle a bit, and guided himself into her heat slowly, his lips immediately latching onto the skin of her neck and forcing a whimper from between her lips. She was still a bit sore from the night before, present in the low ache of him sliding into her, but she was still so ready for him in such a short amount of time. He set a lazy, agonizingly slow pace that had her lightheaded as she clutched her sheets with her free hand and guided his fingers to her breast with the other, her skin burning as he kneaded her soft flesh gently.

He filled her perfectly, not too big or too small, like bloody Goldilocks, and just the thought of it had her walls tightening around his member. Not for the first time did she seriously contemplate the merits of the silvery tattoos.

 _"Julianne,"_ he breathed against the shell of her ear and tilted his hips just enough to hit a spot he learned and familiarized himself with very early on last night.

And she cried out, coming hard and bright, a direct contrast to the way he murmured her name over and over, caressing her clit. In the haze, she vaguely wondered how he could say her name like that but mentally berate himself so loudly only minutes before. He followed her several thrusts later, throbbing inside her as he pushed in as far as he could go, stifling his cry against her shoulder and laving at the skin as he came down from his high.

She closed her eyes the the feeling of him settled inside her, his tongue and lips on her skin, calloused fingertips still working her gently. The mark on her left ring finger felt warm. His ministrations tapered off as his breathing evened out, leaving her one more gentle kiss against her shoulder before falling asleep completely.

But she didn't join him on that particular endeavor again. Instead, Julianne lay there, tucked against his chest, still holding his hand and feeling her sweat cool her skin. The black sky outside her window had lightened into a navy blue.

She thought about everything but Draco. Every time anything even related to him crossed her mind, she redirected. She was damn-good at it apparently. She'd thought of an entirely new story in the thirty minutes she wasted lying there in his arms, eye-twitchingly aware of what they'd done but woefully bereft of what to do next.

So she got up, used the loo, found the blue-grey kitten still snoozing in Draco's trousers, forced herself to forget said owner of trousers, tidied up all the clothes on the floor, and headed into the kitchen to make breakfast, turning on her music so the lyrics drowned out whatever ridiculous thoughts she might have. First, she made an omelette. And then wondered if Draco even liked mushroom, spinach, and cheese omelettes and decided to fry up some normal eggs just in case. Then she grilled some tomatoes, toasted butter, fried up some sausages and potatoes, and made both tea and coffee. And then she wondered if that lean, almost scrawny man could even tuck in all this food; after all, she couldn't judge male appetites based on Harry and the Weasleys.

But then again, he _was_ looking a bit on the thin side. Perhaps he'd need that amount of food, regardless of whether or not he wanted it. She was sure being an ex-Death Eater and a childhood bully made him no lasting friends and contributed greatly to a person's stress levels and, in tandem, their nutrition.

Then she stopped, realized she'd made up a story about a surly little boy who grew up on the wrong perspective and did the wrong things for somewhat redeemable reasons, realized she'd cooked a full course breakfast for a man whose frame she was currently fretting over, and was actively not thinking of said man and indirectly thinking of him regardless.

She downed the rest of her tea, cast a warming charm over all the food, left him a note telling him to eat as much as he wanted, summoned a shirt, a pair of jeans, and her shoes from her room, and left her own _bloody_ home.

She was a fucking disgrace.

* * *

Draco had awoken in stranger women's beds under stranger circumstances with even stranger consequences—which says an embarrassing amount considering he'd only lost his virginity in the last year. The bed in which he lay was warm, hugging him better than even his own mattress, and smelled delicious. His hangover didn't hammer against his skull as badly as it could've if it hadn't been for that dose (insufficient though it had been) of Sober-Up, and the woman with which he'd shared said bed had been…

Well, it hardly mattered since one: there would be no repeat performance for various sub-reasons that were significant but certainly not something he wished to dwell upon, and two: she wasn't even there. The little blue-gray ball of fluff was, however, squeaking to get his attention. Apart from that, there was no sound coming from the adjacent bathroom, no sounds from the kitchen, or anywhere else in the townhouse. Unless she was in the bloody attic or some shite.

Draco crawled out from between the emerald-green sheets, and spied his clothes neatly laid out on the nearby cream-colored armchair. His eye twitched when he remembered the lazy way her slim fingers unbuckled his belt, unfastened the button, and lowered the zipper, taking her damn-sweet time and making him seriously consider if she would have been sorted into Gryffindor or perhaps another House.

Stopping and taking a deep inhale and a slow exhale, Draco made up his mind not to think about such things again. He'd woken up half-hard and therefore half-furious; she was tucked against his chest so bloody comfortably and when she sleepily snuggled further back against him, his eyes had rolled into the back of his head and…

He groaned aloud and wiped his hands down his face in frustration.

He hauled himself off her bed completely, digging his wand from his trouser pocket and waving it to _Scourgify_ and adjust her bed—a considerate action that surprised even himself and make him pause for a good six seconds. Then he spurred himself back into action. He strode into her bathroom, splashed water onto his face, used the loo, yanked on his clothes, picked up the mewling kitten, which immediately snuggled onto his shoulder, and walked into the kitchen—only to freeze in place for another six seconds or so.

Plates of eggs, sausages, bacon, potatoes, tomatoes, toast, and porridge sat on her dining table, a warming charm shimmering over the spread. She'd made him a full fucking English breakfast. That was a first, and he quite honestly had no idea what to do with himself.

Would it be rude to eat it all? Would it be rude _not_ to eat it all? Had _she_ eaten? How long had she spent making all this shite for him? Was it even for him? Perhaps she was expecting company and had merely gone out for more food? Should he wait for her to return? Was she waiting for _him_ to leave first?

He peered around her table, inspecting all the food, when he finally spotted the folded note on the counter beside an empty teacup that said, _Eat as much as you want. Gone for the day._

And then he was back to the original questions of: Would it be rude to eat it all or would it be rude _not_ to eat it all? If she expected leftovers, she would've portioned it out on a plate for him, right?

"Bloody hell," he sighed.

It took him two hours to eat all of her food, worried about the leftovers because he wasn't sure where to put it anyway. Then he looked down at the kitchen filled with his dirty dishes and since there wasn't a House Elf in sight, he decided it'd be rude to leave her a mess after she'd _cooked for him_. So he cleaned up her bloody kitchen, and was about to leave when he realized he had no idea what to do with the cat. She'd left the cat.

Should he bring the cat? How long would she be gone? Did she have wards that would alert her of when he left so she could come back and take care of the cat? Had the cat eaten? Was the cat ill? Was it actually _her_ cat?

With a frustrated, long-suffering groan that he felt from his very _toes_ , he picked up the cat and tucked it into the crook of his arm. He supposed it'd be better to kidnap the cat than leave it completely unattended. If she wanted it back, she could owl him, for Merlin's sake.

He finally left with her bloody cat, feeling like something was crawling under his skin, the sensation originating on the base of his left ring finger.

He was losing his fucking mind.


	9. Chapter 9

**Nine**

* * *

Hermione wasn't one to have proper hangovers—ones that the boys often complained about, ripe with pathetic moaning, tetchy attitudes, and squinty eyes. No, no, Hermione Granger knew how to punctuate heavy water intake with a steady stream of shots that kept up with the Weasley Twins.

However, that wasn't to say that she escaped all of the symptoms of a hangover. Hermione simply became extremely fatigued for the day following a night of drinking—a consequence she quietly gloated over the others as they practically crawled and slogged their way through the day after.

She had to cede poor decision-making, though, when she woke up at noon, remembering that she had a researcher's meeting at the Malfoy Library at three o'clock.

That catapulted her out of bed. With her mouth tasting wrong and her bones weighing down like lead, she tried to clean herself up as best she could, but she had to take a break in the middle of each task in the shower and even in the middle of brushing her teeth. The burst of energy, fueled from the thought of being late to the meeting, died down to the point where she nearly fell asleep pulling on her trousers.

Groaning, she hauled herself out of her bedroom and brewed a pot of something bold and black on her Muggle coffee-maker. She generally preferred to start her day with a variation of teas, but "tiredness" would have to suffice.

She stood there for a few seconds, hating herself for making that pun and hating Fred for becoming enough of an influence in her life that she made such a pun in her current mental state too. And then the pot beeped and she poured herself a cup, blew on the surface, and took her first relieving sip.

She frowned again. Instead of bold and black, it was hazelnut. Shaking her head, Hermione settled for drinking the rest of it and marking it as a sign of exhaustion that her brain wanted one thing but couldn't engage fully enough to get her hands to cooperate.

When she remembered that she had to go to Malfoy Manor, her eyes widened and she had to put her mug down in fear of the trembling that took over her fingers. Simultaneously relieved and horrified that she'd completely missed the implications of researching at Malfoy Library, Hermione was suddenly significantly more awake as she gingerly went through the motions, getting ready to leave. She walked around on tenterhooks in her own flat, dreading departure with every second that passed.

The four researchers had exhausted the knowledge offered by the Hogwarts Library and were forced to redirect attentions to other venues, much to Draco's effervescent enthusiasm. Despite it being purged of the especially malevolent tomes—a process well-documented by the _Daily Prophet_ —the Malfoy Library still held a great store of grey magical information that they all hoped would prove helpful.

Hermione hadn't disputed their next location, understanding the necessity and keeping her mouth resolutely shut during the discussion. Bill had glanced her way worriedly, and Malfoy had kept his eyes fixed firmly on his white knuckles, tight on the edge of the table. Choosing a life of research and study always ran a risk of having something to do with a such a significant library, especially such a landmark archive like the Malfoy's. That didn't stop her from wishing she could avoid it forever.

The three o'clock meet-up had been Hermione's idea, having known the twins would've hauled (and _did_ haul) out their little group into ungodly shenanigans, but as she stood at the front gates of the Manor, she wished she'd pushed the meeting to a later date. Like the following month.

Hermione sighed for the eighteenth time since arriving on the property. Every remaining drop of alcohol in her system fluttered uncomfortably. She cast her Patronus, and the otter scampered off through the iron gate and disappeared into the manor in search for Malfoy. She counted eight deep breaths—so prolonged that she lost count of the seconds per breath—before Malfoy Apparated on the other side of the gates, stony-faced.

"You're a half-hour early," he said dryly.

Hermione opened her mouth and croaked. She cleared her throat, coughed, and then tried again in an actual voice. "I w-wanted to get acclimated."

Malfoy, if possible, turned even paler. Then he seemed to steel himself and reached through the iron bars of the gate and held his hand out to her. She stared at the way the metal went right through his forearm.

"It's a new precaution I had to take," he said impatiently. "The Dark Lord corrupted too many of the ancient Malfoy wards. I had to start from scratch. This was the best I could do for now. You can't get through these gates without my express permission and physical invitation."

Hermione took his hand—a strange enough feeling already since the contact didn't have them both bursting into flames—and he led her straight through the bars. The part of her brain that wasn't hyperaware of her official return to Malfoy grounds vaguely wondered if the magic had the bars phasing through her or if she'd been the one to phase through them—insignificant details she latched onto to keep from getting anywhere near hyperventilating.

"I can Apparate you straight to the library," he said, still loosely holding her hand, as if she was the one readying herself to bolt rather than him.

"Okay," she said quickly.

Malfoy nodded brusquely, and Hermione felt the extreme pressure of Side-Along Apparition before it released.

She opened her eyes to the bright sunlight of one of the most magnificent libraries she'd ever seen. Complete with two winding staircases on each side of the enormous room, the main aisle of bookcases leading up to the grand staircase sprawled in the middle held ancient parchment scrolls that smelled of protective oils. Bookcases upon bookcases created an almost incomprehensible swirl of information typical of the magical world on three levels, each rising floor receding to the back of the cavernous room. Instead of the dreary stereotype she'd enforced in her imagination, the library was actually made up of bright creams, golds, and maple woods, the enchanted lights of the chandeliers and the wall torches glowing bright and warm in tandem with the beaming sunlight.

She took a deep breath and felt her nerves settle just a bit. The room was nothing like what she'd previously seen of the manor; it was easier for her to pretend she wasn't in the same house.

"I Apparate here directly when I come to visit," muttered Malfoy, his shoulders stiff as he led her to one of the long study tables he'd set up for them. "Mother agrees to meet me here. I refuse to step anywhere else in this godforsaken house."

Hermione only swallowed and continued to take even breaths, the surprising atmosphere of the room doing much to assuage her anxiety. But the fact that somewhere in this edifice… The unsettled feeling in her chest would linger for as long as she was there, and she couldn't do a damn thing about it—much like a lot of things in her life these days.

"Shall we start or wait?" asked Malfoy.

Hermione ran her hand over the ornate wooden carvings on the chairs and pulled one of them out for herself. "No sense wasting time, I suppose."

"Tea?" asked Malfoy, his tone stiff with forced cordiality. Hermione appreciated the effort nevertheless.

"Yes, please. Ginger with lemon and honey, if you have it."

"Sober-Up too?" he asked. "You were drunkenly conducting a pub in a Muggle sea shanty not that long ago."

Hermione looked up in disbelief, seeing the lack of sneer or derision as he studied his pristinely-pressed shirtsleeve and bronze and emerald cufflinks. "You're in a good mood."

And _there_ was the sneer. He stiffened again almost immediately. "Potion?" he repeated.

She conceded defeat. The anxiety of returning to the manor did not mix well with the aftereffects of a night of drinking, regardless of whether or not she got proper hangovers. "Please."

"Very well."

He left her at the table, disappearing around the aisles, and she heard the rustle of paper and the slide of books on the shelves. And then Hermione heard a tiny squeak and looked down to see a familiar blue-gray kitten—one she distinctly remembered that Julianne had claimed.

Hermione cleared her throat again, taking advantage of Malfoy's attempt at being civil as she slid her bag off her shoulder and set it on the gleaming table to pick up the soft, little kitten and hold it close to her chest. "So Jules got you home all right?"

Several books dropped onto the floor; Malfoy muttered a low curse before he stiffly answered, "Yes."

Hermione pursed her lips to silence her amusement, reaching out to stroke the kitten's back. She let the subject drop, and turned her attention back to the library itself, reveling in its beauty and her sudden access to such a thing. A tea set magically appeared not long after she turned her back to the study table, and she assumed House-Elf culture in Malfoy Manor lay along the lines of unseen and unheard, as she'd never heard Draco verbally request anything.

She and Malfoy remained in the closest thing to companionable silence they could achieve, compiling relevant books and scrolls to bring back to the table, and from the glimpses she caught of him between the aisles, he'd grown more agitated. She wasn't sure if it was from their accumulation of research or because of her mention of Julianne.

At precisely three o'clock, however, he disappeared and returned with Minerva, Padma, and Bill in tow, the three newcomers already deep in discussion—or tangents, really—as they walked through the double doors.

"—and while I'd normally laud them for educating the public, it's clear these studies have taken a sociopolitical turn instead of remaining purely academic," said Minerva, a rolled-up copy of the _Daily Prophet_ clutched in her fist.

Malfoy closed the doors behind them with a roll of his eyes before disappearing around the bookcases again. "Considering current events and the subject material, it'd be sociopolitical regardless," he called out.

"Of course, but they're not even being subtle about it," added Padma. "They're throwing the findings of the population crisis at the public and forcing them to lean on the Match Books as a means to solve the problem."

"Technically—"

"Bill, stop playing Devil's Advocate!" barked Padma.

"Hello," greeted Hermione over the rim of her teacup.

Minerva turned to Hermione with a sigh and a warm smile. "Hello, Hermione, dear."

"Hello, Hermione," echoed Padma wearily, tossing her purse onto the table.

"Wotcher, Granger. Read this morning's _Prophet_ yet?" asked Bill, lobbing her a cheerful grin.

Hermione grimaced. "My subscription has been mysteriously halted—from what I assume to be a good Samaritan's efforts to keep me from losing my temper first thing in the morning."

"Fred again?"

"If anything inconvenient persists in my life, I'd blame him."

"Well, to save you the _arduous task_ of reading it—they've _romanticized_ the Match Books," growled Padma impatiently. "It's like they've combined scholarly texts with a bodice-ripper!"

Bill snorted, and Hermione nearly choked on her tea.

"Look at this," said Padma, taking Minerva's copy of the _Prophet_ and stomping to Hermione's side. Emblazoned on the front page was, "Matched Pairs May Pare Down Ever-Increasing Population Problems."

"Always with the puns and alliteration," muttered Hermione, shaking her head. Fred must be crowing about it at that very moment.

She handed the newspaper back to Minerva and took another sip of her tea, keeping a tight rein on her temper.

"And have you heard about Neville and Hannah?" added Padma.

Hermione closed her eyes and sipped at her tea. _Just small, slow sips._

"Breaching into local gossip now, are we?" grumbled Malfoy, coming out from behind a nearby bookcase, toting the kitten and three enormous books. He sat down a seat away from Hermione. "Shall we credit that as a scientific source in the paper we're about to publish about how ridiculous this entire phenomenon is?"

"It's relevant, you arsehole!"

"Miss Patil!"

"Sorry, Professor," grumbled Padma. "Anyway, Hannah has gone and asked Neville for a bloody _break_ in their relationship because she wants the opportunity to—and I am saddened to quote—'pursue destiny.' People have begun treating this phenomenon like it's a mark of soul mates."

"Proof that people are idiots and don't deserve to have this shite researched by four people who certainly have better things to do with their lives," said Malfoy.

"I asked Hannah myself why she'd do that when she and Neville were perfectly happy, and she told me that if ancient magic threw it out there, then it must have merit," continued Padma, her voice speeding up into a full-fledged rant, lavender robes going askew as she gestured violently. "Neville, obviously, argues that it's an _option_ , not a bloody mandate—"

"Good on Neville," said Bill.

"—otherwise existing magical bonds would've dissolved," said Padma.

Bill frowned, taking the seat opposite Hermione and picking up a newly-appeared teacup. "One more time? Bonds?"

Padma huffed and threw up her hands. "If this phenomenon was as all-powerful as destiny and fate, then the marriage bonds—the most natural and ancient bonding magic—would've dissolved between unmatched _couples_ and formed between the matched _pairs_. But we all know that there are matched couples out there who are still married in the sight of magic. Their bonds haven't been broken because of these book and tattoos."

"Exactly," muttered Bill, nodding. He toasted Padma with his teacup in the air. "That continues to prove the agency that we still have concerning the influence of the tattoos. We can stay with our partners, unmatched or otherwise, or decide to pursue someone else."

"As far as you know," said Hermione. "This is what you're inferring from the event, Bill. You ought to leave out speculation of the magic's motivation from the discussion."

Bill sighed. He leaned his head against the carved wooden back of the chair. "So because we don't have a formal mouthpiece to explain all this, we should abandon the venture? Merlin forbid we infer theories from inexplicable events since ancient magic can't be bothered to spell it all out for us."

Malfoy suddenly coughed and nearly slammed his teacup down on the table. "Orpington!"

Hermione balked at him. "I beg your pardon?"

A tiny pop echoed through the library and an even tinier House Elf appeared next to Malfoy's chair. "How may I be of service, young master?" asked the austere little elf in a surprisingly deep baritone.

Looking almost as excited as when he was tormenting Harry when they were in school, Malfoy turned to the House Elf and asked, "Why didn't you lift the bloody book off my face when I was lying on the ground, bleeding out?"

Orpington's formal expression soured a bit, and Malfoy huffed.

"Orpington," said Malfoy smoothly, with only a trace of a long-suffering petulance, "why didn't you and the other elves lift the book from my head despite my condition?"

Orpington—Hermione had taken a quick liking to his name and the way he carried himself—bowed, his ears flapping forward in a way that still fit his main. "Because we daren't touch the book, young master."

"Is it forbidden? What made that book particularly different from the rest?" asked Hermione.

Turning to face her slowly, Hermione caught the same sour expression he'd given Malfoy, and Hermione had never felt so chastised by a House Elf. It was a humbling and somewhat humorous first experience.

" _Apart_ from what we already know of the book," amended Malfoy for her with a brief, commiserating glance her way.

"Its ink remains indelible on the witches and wizards, not for elves, goblins, centaurs, or other folk," answered the elf. He chuckled. "The dual curse and blessing stand yours alone to bear."

"But why can't you touch it?" asked Malfoy. "I understand that you won't because it's not _yours_ , but possession isn't the issue—it was the _aversion_ , Orpington."

"We're trying to understand it all better," said Padma. "Surely your aversion connotes a level of knowledge beyond our own."

"Have you touched death?" asked Orpington. "Surely your aversion connotes a level of knowledge beyond our own."

Padma's mouth actually dropped, and McGonagall coughed. Bill snorted, and Malfoy laughed outright. Hermione wished she could sit with the elf and have a conversation with him.

"Orpington," said Malfoy through his teeth, rubbing his forehead.

"We do not speak for the ancient magic and whatever it deems appropriate to unleash upon the magical world," said Orpington. "Wizard and Muggle alike have attempted to understand death. Name one who has succeeded in any measure."

"Must you keep equating this phenomenon with death?" asked Bill, grimacing.

Orpington tilted his head to the side. "Death is a decisive and unchangeable event, is it not?"

"Orpington," said Hermione, vaguely wondering if Fred was rubbing off _that_ much that she found the elf's name so enjoyable, "when you refer to the event, do you mean its appearance alone or its impact on the world?"

"When you embarked upon this search, did you set out to understand its purpose or its source?" asked the elf instead.

Malfoy sighed and rubbed his forehead.

Padma shot him a look that everyone seemed to interpret as, _Is there no one other elf we can ask?_

Malfoy's responding expression relayed no other answer: _No_.

"We're seeking both," said Hermione. "The phenomenon is unprecedented."

"I'm sure the first person who died thought the same thing of death," said Malfoy, rolling his eyes. "We understand _that_ , Orpington, thank you, but why do you all have this aversion to this book? Do you know anything about how it came about? Has anything like this ever happened before, and it simply went unrecorded?"

Orpington looked at Malfoy, his big, hazel eyes flashing. "Yes."

Malfoy threw his hands up in the air in frustration, and Padma began to dejectedly unbraid her hair. Bill, however, leaned forward, elbows on the table, as he narrowed his eyes at the elf, studying the smaller creature with cool, blue eyes.

"Orpington?" asked Bill.

"William?" replied Orpington wryly.

The corner of Bill's lips twitched. "Do you know anything about how it came about?"

"Yes."

"Has anything like this happened before?"

The elf's ears twitched. "Yes."

"Exactly like this?" asked Hermione, catching onto Bill's tactic.

"No," answered the elf, allowing her into the fold.

"But whatever had happened before—it went unrecorded?" asked Bill.

"Yes."

McGonagall finally spoke up. "Is it harmful in any way?"

Orpington turned to the older witch and shook his head. "Not at all."

"There's the answer then," said Malfoy. "All is saved and solved. Let's bring our findings to the Minister and conclude our arrangement so we can be done—for the first time—before dinner."

None of them took him seriously even as he stood, toting the little kitten with him.

"Where are you headed in such a rush?" asked Padma, frowning. "And since when were you a cat person? I half expected you to be petting a peacock rather than any kind of domesticated animal."

"For your information, that image you've got is of my father," said Malfoy, tucking the kitten in the crook of his elbow.

"And that cat's not his," said Bill wryly, causing a pink tinge to seep into Malfoy's pale face. "He's Julianne's, isn't he?"

"Julianne Adoria?" asked McGonagall, eyebrows high and a smirk twitching onto her lips.

Hermione sighed, shaking her head. She could only thank the eastern and western gods across the world that Fred wasn't there; even _she_ could see the jokes that would come about with Malfoy taking care of Jules's cat.

"So is this is it then?" asked Padma, looking even more worried than before despite Orpington's contribution.

"Are you displeased with the findings?" asked Malfoy bracingly.

"Well, _yes_ , frankly. I don't like being told to leave things be—especially something as significant as this," countered Padma, looking at the others for support. "Granted, we have a new source in Orpington, but that can't be the end of it all."

"Is death the end of it all?" asked Orpington sagely.

"What is it with you and death?!" cried Bill.

"Young Weasley asked questions of the singular event, but not of what will follow."

Bill squeezed the newspaper in his hands, crinkling and crackling in his misplaced aggression. "And what exactly will follow, Orpington?"

"More."

* * *

Much to Malfoy's frustration, he was not able to leave the manor for a while longer. He hadn't voiced it, but his restlessness reflected how much he itched to leave—whether it be because of his discomfort in the manor or because he wanted to see Julianne again, Hermione wasn't sure, but Padma, Bill, and McGonagall insisted on prolonging Orpington's evasiveness and questioning him further about what would soon follow the appearance of the books and tattoos.

It was to no avail; the elf had reached the threshold of his contribution and was tight-lipped and nearly broke protocol and disappeared without prompting. But he managed to secure Malfoy's permission first before bowing impatiently to the guests and escaping the library with a loud crack that had Padma stomping her foot and shrieking, "Now what the bloody hell are we supposed to tell the Minister?! _Oh, all is well, but brace yourself for whatever's to come!_ "

Malfoy reached his own threshold at that point and promptly ushered everyone up and together so he could Disapparate them to the main gate again with an open-ended concession to meeting up again.

Hermione left the protesting to Padma, and eagerly made her way back to her flat. Quite honestly, she hadn't been in the mood for research. Despite the Hangover Cure, her body still ached and tiredness weighed down on her shoulders. Not for the first time in a few months, she decided to let things be for a little while—not that she'd ever say such a thing aloud. The Match Books and the Tattoos frustrated and angered her, but since there wasn't much they could do but interrogate House Elves and bicker amongst themselves, she opted to try and distract herself from the subject if only for one night.

She was ready for a night of comfort food and the company of a good book, but of course, her life could never be that easy anymore. Her formative years in Hogwarts set the bar too high.

As she was making a simple chicken noodle soup in a small pot, she'd turned her back on the boiling noodles and broth, and when she'd returned to deposit the chicken chunks, it looked like someone had switched the pot from her broth and noodles to one filled with a simmering clam chowder.

She didn't even question it anymore. There was no one else in her flat, and after she'd left Fred in her kitchen, unsupervised, for any amount of time, there was no other explanation.

She pursed her lips as she brought out a glass Pyrex casserole dish and filled it with water from the sink. She flipped the dial of the oven to a random setting, stuck the dish in, shut the door, left it for a minute, and when she opened the door again, there was a steaming dish of lasagna.

Hermione closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, noting the ever-increasing number just to regain some semblance of calm. The amount of magic it must have taken to charm her kitchenware to produce a designated dish despite it being filled with the wrong ingredients impressed her—truly. Nevertheless, she would've been more impressed if she'd been an observer, not the victim.

She would eat the bloody chowder. She would save the bloody lasagna and bring it to work for lunch. She would set aside the casserole dish, the pot, and the coffee pot (after she remembered the hazelnut coffee mix-up from earlier that morning) as evidence of Fred's shenanigans.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Hermione knew it was Fred's doing. George might have had a thumb and an index finger in the pot, but Fred had been elbow-deep in her kitchen only days before. There was no other culprit.

But Hermione would suffer through it. If Fred wanted to engage in some sort of siege attack, then she'd face his onslaught with her head high and her own arsenal at the ready.

Meanwhile, several miles away, in the workroom at the back of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, a one-eared Weasley conveyed a similar thought process, albeit with fewer words.

"You're a numpty."

"If that term suddenly took on a new slang definition along the lines of a handsome genius, then I concur, Georgie."

George sighed, shaking his head and chuckling. "You do remember that she's the Brightest Witch of Her Age—"

"Of course. She's the light of my life," interrupted Fred, almost completely deadpan except for a tinge of bitterness that always made George feel like the more mature twin. He always boasted it was because of the twenty years Fred shaved off by being knocked unconscious at the Battle of Hogwarts.

"—and that she's the brains behind Harry's defeat of Moldywarts himself—"

"A beautiful brain and a beautiful behind," said Fred, managing to keep a straight face if only because it was somewhat true. Granger did have a hell of a brain, and he'd admittedly caught himself watching the sway of her hips in those uniform skirts many a night in the Gryffindor common room.

"—and she sic'd a whole herd of centaurs and a full-fledged giant on Umbridge."

Fred lowered his wand from the black umbrella floating in the air above his workbench and exhaled dramatically. "She's also the same witch who earned the ire and antics of a popular prankster by enforcing a perception of me onto herself. I've got to contribute to her track record of success by upholding aforementioned perception."

George rolled his eyes, grimacing as he stirred the cauldron of a new batch of Puking Pastilles—it would help with control and aim for the especially devious and disgusting individuals.

"I understand why you're doing it, Freddie, you've explained that part already. What I can't understand is why you're pushing it even now. Don't you think it's a tad petulant? You know she's stressed herself out about these Match Books—"

"The books only lit a fire to the kindling that was already there," said Fred. "She respects us as inventors and pranksters, but I don't take kindly to slights against my marriageability, Georgie."

"Two months ago, you couldn't give the slightest shite about your marriageability."

"Touché, brother," said Fred, waving his wand with a dramatic flourish, a purple ribbon of light spiraling around the innocent umbrella, "but just like how we often don't find bruises until we've gone and bumped it all over again, so shall I treat this black mark that's made me blue."

George stirred once more and waved a timer charm over the simmering cauldron before skipping over to Fred's workbench and sitting down in front of him, setting his elbows on the table and propping his chin on his fists, smiling. "You like her."

Fred snorted. "Of course. That's why I don't appreciate her saying that about me. What kind of friend says nonsense like that?"

George scoffed. "I mean—you've got a thing for her."

Fred looked up from his notes and glared. "I'll let that slide because you've lost an ear, so your balance is off—hence that highly unbalanced statement."

"Observation," corrected George, his smirk growing as Fred's glare darkened even further. "Statements imply tone. Observations, by definition, are what we see. And I see that you've got a thing for our little bookworm."

"Observations are also influenced by perceptions, o brother mine—and we're back to the root problem of Hermione's apparently atrocious vantage point of my character and my eligibility."

"And you think pranking the living shite out of the poor woman will solve your problem?"

"Of course not, but it'll certainly make me feel better. And who knows? Maybe she'll rise to the occasion and we'll make a prankster out of her."

"Do you _really_ want Hermione Granger to play our game?"

Instead of wincing or grimacing or showing any sort of negative reaction, which is what he reckoned George expected, Fred grinned.

* * *

 **So I already have my own list of pranks, but if anyone has any ingenious ideas they'd like to see playing out here, I'm open to all possibilities of mischief.**


End file.
